DALLAS — The silver lining to the Angels’ miserable season arrived on Tuesday.
Major League Baseball held its draft lottery at the winter meetings, and the Angels ended up with the No. 2 pick. It’s the highest the organization has picked since having the No. 1 pick in 1995, when they selected Darin Erstad.
The Angels haven’t picked in the top seven since 1997, when they took Troy Glaus with the No. 3 pick.
In General Manager Perry Minasian’s four previous drafts with the Angels, they have picked from No. 8 to No. 13.
“It’s exciting,” Minasian said. “It’s a huge difference.”
The Angels had the fourth-worst record in the majors last season, but they had the third-best odds (18%) to get the No. 1 pick because the Chicago White Sox were ineligible by virtue of being in the top six picks two years in a row. The Angels could have ended up anywhere from first to ninth.
The Washington Nationals, who had the fifth-worst record in the majors, ended up with the No. 1 pick.
In the last four years the Angels have taken right-hander Sam Bachman, shortstop Zach Neto, first baseman Nolan Schanuel and second baseman Christian Moore with their first-round picks.
Now, they have a chance to get a higher-caliber player than that.
Bobby Witt Jr., the MVP runner-up this season, was the No. 2 pick in the 2019 draft. Washington Nationals outfielder Dylan Crews, who was the No. 2 pick in 2023, is currently the No. 4 prospect in all of baseball, according to Baseball America.
Other notable big leaguers who were selected No. 2 in the past decade include Baltimore Orioles outfielder Heston Kjerstad (2020), Cincinnati Reds right-hander Hunter Greene (2017) and longtime Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman (2015), who is currently a free agent.
There have also been recent misses in that spot. Catcher Joey Bart was taken No. 2 by the San Francisco Giants in 2018, and he was designated for assignment last season. The Reds took Nick Senzel in 2016, and he has never established himself as a major leaguer.
Minasian said the Angels will meet to begin assembling their draft board sometime in the next month, and they’ll likely go into the spring with five or six players as candidates for that pick.
The top five prospects for the 2025 draft, according to Baseball America, are Texas A&M outfielder Jace LaViolette, Oklahoma high school shortstop Ethan Holliday, UC Santa Barbara right-hander Tyler Bremer, Florida State left-hander Jamie Arnold and Corona High right-hander Seth Hernandez.
Holliday is the son of former major leaguer Matt Holliday and the younger brother of Jackson Holliday, the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft.
“I know our staff is very excited to have the opportunity to pick second,” Minasian said. “We’ve done a ton of work up to this point. We’ll see how the spring goes, trying to make the best pick we can. So it obviously helps, not only with that individual pick, but pool money, all those things. So, really, really exciting, huge.”
By getting the No. 2 pick instead of picking ninth or 10th, as they have recently, the Angels will have a significantly larger pool of money to sign their draft picks.
The Angels already had an extra compensation pick after the third round because they didn’t sign this year’s third-round pick, Texas A&M pitcher Ryan Prager.
The Angels signed third baseman Carter Kieboom to a minor-league deal. Kieboom, a former Nationals top prospect, has hit .199 with a .598 OPS in parts of three major league seasons. He’s a right-handed hitter. …
The Angels will pick third in the Rule 5 draft on Wednesday. Minasian said he wasn’t sure if they would make a selection. …
Minasian and his brother Zack, who was just promoted to GM of the San Francisco Giants, did an interview together on MLB Network. “It was pretty surreal,” Perry Minasian said. “It’s really mind-blowing. You think of all the different stages of life and being around each other all the time, all four of us (including bothers Calvin and Rudy), trying to figure out what we want to do, and to have him sitting next to me and having the same job title, it’s a wild moment.”
