After another failed season that extended their playoff drought to 11 seasons in a row, the Los Angeles Angels have decided to not pick up the option on manager Ron Washington’s contract for the 2026 season and relieved him of his duties. Washington, 73, underwent a triple bypass surgery on his heart in late June that cut his season managing the team short, requiring bench coach Ray Montgomery to take over for him in an interim role. Under Washington, the Angels were a combined record of 99-137 over 236 games managed under the oldest manager in franchise history. Montgomery steered the team to a 36-52 record for the remainder of the season, with another late-season collapse knocking the Halos out of playoff contention. Montgomery will not be promoted to full-time manager as he had been the team’s bench coach for the past few seasons and is not expected to return to the team. As for the rest of the coaching staff, such as hitting coach Johnny Washington, pitching coach Barry Enright, base coaches Bo Porter and Eric Young Sr and all the others, their fates are unknown at this time. But with a new managerial hire on the horizon, there is likely to be a new coaching staff as well depending on who the front office hires.

This firing continues a trend of countless Angels managers since Mike Scioscia decided to step down from managing the team following the conclusion of the 2018 season. The Halos have mostly been a franchise with managerial inconsistency throughout their history, with the exception of Scioscia, who provided seven seasons of playoff baseball and six division championships along with one World Series title in 2002. Mediocre records were the floor under Scioscia, now they have become the ceiling as the Angels have not had a season where they have finished above .500 since 2015 and not had even 80 wins in a season since 2018, Scioscia’s final season as team manager. Ever since Scioscia’s final game, the Halos have had an overall record of 456-576(.442 winning percentage) in regular season play. Between Brad Ausmus(one season), Joe Maddon(a pandemic-shortened 2020 season did him rough along with a 14-game losing streak that ousted him in June 2022), Phil Nevin(one and a half seasons with Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Anthony Rendon and that trio barely played with each other), Ron Washington(one and a half seasons basically for him due to health problems) and Ray Montgomery(a half-season serving in old Wash’s place), the Angels have had floundering results on the field. In spite of having a few of the greatest players in 21st century baseball history so far, the Halos can’t seem to get it right. Whether it’s due to an AL West dominated by the Houston Astros in that timespan or it’s due to injuries to the biggest stars/key role players on the team or it’s due to poor execution from the pitching staff/bullpen and batting order with runners in scoring position(a stat they seemed to improve on this year), the Angels are stuck in a rut and they have finally had back-to-back seasons finishing in last place for the first time in ages.

But the future can be bright and this team can finally take a step towards admitting they are in a post-Shohei Ohtani rebuild. It’s not easy for Arte Moreno to admit, but the writing is on the walls. Finding a manager who can steer that rebuild period and make the team look more competitive on the field with sufficiently better results over the next few seasons will be important to find. There are a few former Angels players who could be worthy candidates for Moreno and the front office to consider. There’s Albert Pujols, who successfully managed a Dominican Winter League team called the Leones del Esogido to a title in last season’s Latin American Winter League tournament. In spite of his desire to win, Albert might not be available right away as he is slated to be the manager for the Dominican Republic’s national baseball team in the upcoming 2026 World Baseball Classic occurring next March. There is also Torii Hunter, who played five seasons with the Angels and mentored Mike Trout in his rookie years. Torii has been staying around the team as a part-time coach in spring training and whenever the team is playing in his hometown area of Dallas, Texas. Hunter was on the bench at Angel Stadium for the final homestand of the season, so he might be waiting in the wings. With no managerial experience at the big league or similar level, Hunter might not be the best choice for a managerial role, although the team that he played for a dozen-plus seasons on in the Minnesota Twins is considering him for their open manager spot.

Other than those two leading names, there is Darin Erstad, who coached his alma mater Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball program for nine seasons from 2011-19. Erstad was a big part of the 2002 World Series team as he was the center-fielder of that special squad that went all the way. Erstad would be a sentimental pick for the fan base in rallying the team back from the depths of despair and breaking a long playoff drought, something that Erstad was a part of in 2002 when the Halos had a 15-season postseason slump broken. Other than Erstad, the options are mostly limited, but the person with the most experience managing teams and leading them to success everywhere he has been is Bob Melvin, who was recently fired from his role as manager of the San Francisco Giants following two mediocre seasons where the team narrowly missed out on playoff contention. Melvin started his managerial career with the Seattle Mariners in succeeding Lou Piniella, nearly leading Seattle to the playoffs in his first season in 2003. Melvin then managed for parts of five seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks, who made it to the postseason in 2007 and lost in the NLCS to the Colorado Rockies. Melvin then went back to the AL West to manage the Oakland Athletics for 11 seasons, leading the A’s to the playoffs in five of them. Following a departure from a franchise in the process of eventually moving out of the Bay Area, Melvin went down to San Diego to manage an up-and-coming Padres team that he led to the playoffs and had them win two playoff series in the new expanded Wild Card format before losing to the Philadelphia Phillies in five games in the LCS. After a mediocre 2023 season, Melvin was poached back up north to manage San Francisco, where two mediocre seasons have occurred for the Giants. So, now with Melvin available, could he be the first and only manager to lead four teams in the same state(California) and divisional sphere? The Angels could make that happen for Melvin, who was on the other side of a competitive interstate rivalry for more than a decade.

Either way, the Halos need to find the right manager for the “long-term” endgame of the team. For teams in rebuilds and in the midst of long playoff droughts, a manager is important, but so is developing top-tier talent. The Angels need to continue improving at that, as their farm system has been filled with prospects who have been called up at very fast speeds and have rarely gone back down to the minor leagues. Young stars such as Zach Neto, Nolan Schanuel, Logan O’Hoppe, Christian Moore and Denzer Guzman have been called up in supercharged fashion due to a lack of positional depth at the big league level. But those five guys can serve as the main everyday starters at all five infield positions around the pitching mound for many years to come. Pitching prospects such as Caden Dana, Sam Aldegheri, George Klassen and Tyler Bremner have been eased on and kept in the minors for longer periods of time, but those four guys could make up a potential starting rotation for the Halos someday. As Trout’s final years are ahead of him and older players who were once young rising stars continue to age, the Angels need to have a good coaching staff steer this time in the right direction. Of the clubs currently considered to be in rebuild mode, the only team that seems to have a stable field manager at the lead of their “five-year” rebuild are the Athletics, with Mark Kotsay being the manager since 2022 and a couple of last place finishes have led to better records in the last two seasons. With a bunch of good young prospects and a couple of veteran bats as well, the A’s have shown promise as their management has sworn to make the team a contender by the time they reach their destination in the desert on the Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Angels need to follow that same model(other than leaving Southern California, a new stadium and ownership could be their version of transformation) that the Athletics are on and success could eventually follow. The fans are more than willing to wait; they have already endured two long postseason droughts and as long as the weather is fine and the seats are cheaper than any other sports venue in SoCal, they will come, especially on giveaway nights.

So, the Angels have a chance to find the right person to lead the team on the field and in terms of the front office, Perry Minasian might be running out of time. His contract expires after the 2026 season and his inability to put a winning product on the field while relying on a rapid call-up strategy for players he has drafted in the first round of MLB drafts might come back to haunt him. But if nothing else, Perry has set the stage for a potential third grand era of success in Angels baseball history. As for Moreno, whether he sells the team or not in the next few years is irrelevant. The fans might be a little more antsy and the city of Anaheim might want to reconsider requiring the team to have the name of the city in its name, due to Mayor Ashleigh Aitken’s list of concession requests from Moreno and the franchise. But the bottom line is a new manager has to be found and stay around on a multi-year contract that can hopefully be extended with good results on the field. Not just in the team record and divisional finishes, but also in terms of team chemistry as well. That cannot be overlooked as the Halos look to build themselves up from the ashes once again.