Over the past few years, a team in Major League Baseball has been calling up its prospects at a breakneck pace. Young stars drafted with first round selections have been getting up to the big leagues faster than anyone else in a similar system. This is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. The good side of this is that the players can test their abilities against major league competition and see if they can stand out and claim a long-term roster spot as long as they don’t spiral down. But the bad side of this matter is that those young players can fail a lot in a sport defined by failure and their confidence could potentially plummet, leading to a trip back down to the minors and there is no guarantee that those said prospects would be back on the big league roster at all. But for the team that is testing the waters with having their star prospects make their big league debuts before any other team’s prospects selected in the draft, they are gambling on this strategy rather than relying solely on veteran depth to provide star power on a club desperate for success. A forced strategy by the general manager and front office, this pattern will continue as long as there is an immediate need for depth in talent on the big league roster. And this is something that I have had a front-row seat to for these past few years due to this team being my hometown club.

The Los Angeles(ahem, Anaheim/Orange County) Angels have been testing out a strategy of calling up their top prospects from the minor league teams that are affiliated with them over the past four to five seasons due to a lack of depth on the big league roster. They have done this with young pitchers and hitters alike that they draft or acquire via trade. There are several players on the current Angels roster that have only seen a spoonful of minor league action before getting called up to the big leagues. And now, in a season where they have a legitimate chance to contend for a playoff spot in the second half of the season, the Halos are calling up two more prospects, one who has seen some major league action and another who has yet to play a big-league game. The Angels have made roster moves to call up their first-round pick from last year’s MLB draft(a trend that they have executed over these past four seasons) due to his talented performance in the minor league levels and another past first-round draft pick who took a bit longer to break through into the big leagues and has had minimal experience due to injuries that he has suffered. The main guy that the Angels are calling up is the second-baseman of the future, in which 2B is a position they have been looking to fill for the past decade. One guy has played a majority of games in that position over the past few seasons, or he would have had more playing time at second base if not for the constant injury woes of their third baseman. So, now in June 2025, the Angels are calling up their first-round pick from the 2024 MLB draft for a road trip to Baltimore and his hometown metropolis of New York. His name is Christian Moore.

Selected with the number 8 overall selection in last year’s draft out of the University of Tennessee, Moore will be getting his first taste of big league action. He joins an infield littered with young stars with minimal playing time in the Angels’ minor league system. Shortstop Zach Neto was drafted with the 12th overall selection in the 2022 draft and he only needed 48 minor league games before being called up by the Halos in April of 2023. Catcher Logan O’Hoppe was acquired by the Angels from the Philadelphia Phillies in a deadline deal in 2022 and he made his big league debut at the end of that season after playing in the final portion of the minor league schedule for the Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas. First baseman Nolan Schanuel only needed a month of playing time in the minors after getting drafted with a first-round pick in 2023 and he made his debut in a game that I attended on Aug. 18 of that year, right when a literal hurricane was about to hit Southern California(I say that in jest because Schanuel is from south Florida and they get some hurricanes sometimes). So, Christian Moore is in no way alone in making his league debut after playing the equivalent of six or so months in the minor league system. A couple of pitchers that the Angels have either drafted or acquired via trade made their big league debuts after a couple of years or less in the minors. Reid Detmers, who has transitioned from being a shaky starter to an effective reliever, only took less than a year to get called up. It’s still a process for the other guys, such as Caden Dana and Samuel Aldegheri, who both made their big league debuts last year and they don’t need to worry about being a part of the starting rotation unless an injury happens to one or more of the Halos starters. Knock on wood that doesn’t happen. So, Moore is going to make his debut on Fri. June 13, 2025. Let’s hope he does well and doesn’t fade right away, as he is set to supplant Luis Rengifo for playing time at second base.

Christian Moore is definitely capable of being an offensive upgrade to Rengifo, who has failed to regain the power that he had in recent years for the Angels. Rengifo is in the final year of his contract and could potentially be traded or designated for assignment if he doesn’t pick up his numbers soon. Rengifo has done well defensively filling in for Yoán Moncada at third base, with Moncada being on the injured list a couple of times with injuries to his thumb and knee. Rengifo still has a secure roster spot, but that might not last for long when Moncada returns from his current IL stint. This gives Moore a chance to show what he’s got and how he’ll function playing in big league ballparks in front of big league audiences and against big league players. General manager Perry Minasian has deployed this strategy of calling up young stars with little minor league time in the past few years and it has yielded good results so far for the other prospects. Zach Neto is the shortstop of the present and future for the Angels, having put up good offensive numbers while having a stellar defensive presence in making spectacular catches and throws to first and second base. Moore will be paired with Neto as a strong infield tandem hopefully for the next decade plus. Nolan Schanuel has been a big offensive presence at first base in succeeding Albert Pujols and Jared Walsh at the position, having some good defensive abilities as well. Moore will be throwing to big Schanu for hopefully the next ten plus years. And Logan O’Hoppe has been a power surge at catcher, having big offensive numbers for the position and being a great backstop for pitchers behind the plate in throwing out runners who try to steal bases. Moore will be catching balls from O’Hoppe on stolen base attempts and potentially throwing them to him at plays at the plate for the next several years.

Besides Moore’s ascent from Double-A Rocket City to the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees and his impressive showing in Spring Training play in the Cactus League, Sam Bachman has returned to the big league roster after recovering from Tommy John surgery that he had following a few appearances for the Angels in the 2023 season. Bachman was drafted with a first-round selection in the 2021 MLB draft. Being a red-headed, ginger-bearded clone to Barry Enright(who sports the same look), Bachman has a strong arsenal of pitches in his right-handed arm. He has a sizzling fastball that can be a fireball that can match that of Ben Joyce, who sadly had to be shut down following shoulder soreness in his throwing arm back in early May. Bachman also has a good assortment of off-speed pitches and can be a potential future starting pitcher as he has displayed this potential in the minors. His arrival comes with good timing with a bullpen that has dealt with stability issues in the middle relief portion of it with a high ERA and WHIP in blowing leads built by the offense and good outings by the starting rotation. Bachman can hopefully create a good repertoire for getting batters out in the middle to late innings and can help bridge the gap to Kenley Jansen, who is doing well in getting saves when the opportunities for them occur. Hopefully Slingin’ Sammy on the Halos can be a key pitcher for years to come in Anaheim.

Bachman and Moore’s additions to the 26-man roster come at a time when the Angels are attempting to make a push to contend in the mediocre American League West and the American League in general. With only a couple of teams with supremely good records currently, the American League is wide open. The AL West is the weakest division of them all this year, with the Houston Astros having the division lead over these past few weeks after taking it from the struggling Seattle Mariners, who the Angels just defeated in a home series at the Big A. The Angels have improved their place in the standings over the past few weeks, crawling out of last place in the division with an eight-game winning streak that included sweeps of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the vagabond Athletics, who the Halos have swept again in a recent home series. The Texas Rangers have been slumping as well in failing to go on a sustainable winning streak that could propel them to the top of the standings, but they remain a threat with plenty of divisional games left. The Angels are looking to hunt down Houston, who they will play for ten more games with the expanded schedule limiting the amount of inter-division games these past few years. An upcoming three-game home series against the Astros could very well be Christian Moore’s Big A debut. Two four-game series against Seattle in late July and mid-September could loom large. The Angels will also play the Rangers twice at home in July in what could be seven large games against a team that just won the World Series two seasons ago. A Texas-two-step road set against the Rangers and Astros at the end of August could be critical as well. Along with all the other games against out-of-division opponents in the American and National Leagues, the Angels face a large final sixty percent of games in the 2025 season.

Hopefully the contributions of these young stars along with a healthy Mike Trout and other good performing stars such as Taylor Ward and Jo Adell can help boost the Halos offensively. And the bullpen can do well along with the solid starting five that has yet to miss a turn in the rotation so far this season. Let’s hope that this team managed by Ron Washington can make a run and that they could be prospective buyers at the trade deadline this season, in spite of them already having acquired a couple of veteran bats to help provide depth in the lineup. The recent acquisitions of Chris Taylor(from the Dodgers) and LaMonte Wade Jr(from the Giants) have the potential to help the team in the short-term, although Taylor was just placed on the IL with a hand fracture and that paved the path for Wade to be placed on the active roster. The Halos need the injuries to be very limited to give themselves a legit shot at contending and Mike Trout’s return from a month on the list with knee soreness was encouraging. We shall see if this team can contend or if they fold again due to the usual factors of failure. Hope it’s the former rather than the latter.