We are 25 games into the 2026 season. The Angels are 11-14. This is the moment where we go through the accountability board, because the accountability board exists specifically for moments like this — not to celebrate when things go right, not to excuse when they don't, but to be honest about what has happened versus what we said would happen. This website was built on the premise that the Angels have not been honest enough about themselves for eleven years running. We will not be the twelfth example.
José Soriano as ace of the staff: working. Better than working. 0.28 ERA, 39 strikeouts in 32.2 innings, five quality starts. We said this needed to happen. It is happening. Credit where it is due — to Soriano, to the pitching coaches, to whoever decided he was ready to go opening day and turned out to be right.
Grayson Rodriguez as the healthy second starter contributing 25-plus starts: not working. Rodriguez started the season on the injured list and nobody has given a confident public timeline for his return. We marked this as the biggest x-factor before the season. It was not a pessimistic hedge — it was an honest acknowledgement that we were depending on a pitcher who missed all of 2025. He is not here. The rotation has had to cover for him with Jack Kochanowicz and Reid Detmers carrying extra load. Detmers has been competent (4.08 ERA), Kochanowicz has been reasonable (3.10 ERA), which is more than we had a right to expect. But the plan required Rodriguez. The plan does not currently have Rodriguez.
Ben Joyce returning as closer: also on the injured list. His shoulder rehab is progressing. The timeline is May or June or possibly later, depending on which update you read. In his absence, the bullpen has been — and we are being diplomatic here — a work in progress. Romano is at 7.11 ERA. Pomeranz is at 7.00. We built the whole back-end plan around Joyce showing up and closing games. He has not shown up. The back end is showing it.
Harrison Bader to centre field, Adell moving to a corner: this one simply did not happen. Bader signed elsewhere. Adell is playing centre and batting .270 with three home runs, which is fine — genuinely fine, not damning-with-faint-praise fine. He looks comfortable in the position. The plan was specific about needing elite defence in centre and it turns out you can get by with Adell being decent, so this particular miss has not cost them on the field as much as we feared it might.
Christian Moore holding down second base: unclear. Moore has been up and down, in and out of the lineup depending on matchups and form. He's a 23-year-old with a swing that has real talent in it and also real exposure in it, and the organisation appears to be managing him carefully rather than committing to him fully. This is not ideal. We said give him the full season without flinching. The flinching appears to be happening.
Logan O'Hoppe rebounding from a poor 2025: not yet. .191 average through 23 games. Kurt Suzuki, who mentored him specifically for this purpose, has more work to do. The bat has not shown up. The framing behind the plate remains solid, which means his presence is not actively hurting the team, but a catcher hitting .191 is a liability you have to carry with other parts of the lineup doing more than their share.
The broader picture at 25 games is that this team is better than the record suggests in some ways and exactly as fragile as the record suggests in others. Trout has 7 home runs and a .938 OPS and looks healthy, which was always the silent prerequisite for any of this working. Neto has 5 home runs from the shortstop position and is playing like the franchise player the roadmap said he already was. Soler has matched pace with Trout in the home run column. The offence is not the problem.
The problem is the same problem it has been for the better part of a decade, which is that this franchise has not solved the bullpen, has not solved the back half of the rotation, and has not put together 25 consecutive healthy days from all of its important contributors simultaneously. We are 11-14. We are not out of anything. We are also not ahead of schedule. The roadmap said this was going to be hard. It is being hard. We will check back in at 50 games and see whether the trajectory has changed. Right now it is a coin that has not landed yet.