Sleepers & Busts for Every Team: AL West Edition
I give out one fantasy baseball sleeper and one bust pick for every team in the league. I take on the AL West in this first piece.
Links
I am now at the point in the offseason where I can really start printing the clicks. In late October, I began the team preview series. I’ve now nearly finished it, which means I have analyzed and written up nearly 300 hitters and almost 200 pitchers. So it’s harvest season. I can now just borrow from my previous work and repackage stuff in posts like this.
It’s a beautiful system, really. And I’m starting with everybody’s favorite kind of article. It’s really hard to resist clicking on a Sleepers and Busts article. And look - I’ve caught you! You’ve clicked it. And I’m even splitting this up by division, so I get to lure you all into six different article clicks! If I only got paid per click… hmmmmmm!
I will try to keep this as “non-obvious” as possible, but there’s only so much I can do.
Angels
Sleeper: Jose Soriano
I like velocity, and I like ground balls. Soriano’s sinker is insane on both of those fronts. He averaged 97.7 miles per hour on it, and hitters pounded it into the ground to the tune of a 72% GB%.
The other two pitches he has (a curveball and a four-seamer) didn’t work quite as well, but there’s a path to improvement with how hard the guy can throw. The high ground ball rate keeps his ERA under control, and I really like the ceiling on this kind of arm talent.
Bonus Sleeper: Christian Moore
Moore was playing baseball at the University of Tennessee one year ago. The Angels took him with the #8 overall pick in the draft, and now he’s their #2 overall prospect.
In a normal situation, this would mean that Moore is likely to debut in 2026 or beyond. But that’s not how the Angels role works. In recent years, the Angels have promoted Nolan Schanuel right from AA after seeing just 85 minor league PAs from him. Similarly, Zach Neto needed just 217 PAs (16 at AAA) to get the call to the Majors. Moore already has 110 PAs in the minors with a .347/.400/.594 slash line. I don’t think it’s crazy at all to think he could be in the Majors by May, and who knows - maybe they even give him a real shot to win a job out of camp.