The Los Angeles Angels became a franchise in 1961. They were the Los Angeles Angels for a few seasons before transitioning to the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels and are now back to the the Los Angels Angels. The club has one World Series title that came in 2002. The Angels have six retired numbers including Jackie Robinson‘s number 42. Here is an all-time starting lineup for the Los Angeles Angels including a designated hitter, a starting pitcher and a relief pitcher.
Hall of Fame Inductee in 1991
Uniform Number 29 Retired by Angels in 1986
Carew is a 18- time All-Star, missing the mid-summer classic in only the last season of his career. He was with the Angels for seven seasons. The Hall of Famer moved over to first base after playing second base with Minnesota for over a decade. Carew’s slash line in his Angels career is .314/.393/.392 with 968 hits and 474 runs scored. He finished his career with 3,053 hits.
Since 2012, Trout has been either AL MVP or the runner-up in every season except 2017 when he finished fourth. At the time of writing, he has 1,207 games played and a 1.001 OPS. His 162 game average comes to 39 home runs per year along with 34 doubles and 102 RBIs. Clearly Trout is putting up numbers that very few players have in their career, and he is turning just 29 today (August 7, 2020).
Vladimir Guerrero (Image from espn.go.com)
Hall of Fame Inductee in 2017
It is tough to leave Tim Salmon out of the right field spot due to his consistent play for the Angels across 14 seasons. However, even though Guerrero has a shorter stint with the club, his slash line was higher than Salmon’s at .319/.381/.546 in six seasons. Guerrero also won four Silver Sluggers, made four All-Star games and won an MVP in his time with the Angels. In 2004 when he won MVP, Guerrero had both 39 doubles and home runs, as well as 126 RBIs.
In the seven seasons Glaus was with the Angels, he slugged nearly .500 at .497. In 2000, he had a slash line of .284/.404/.604, giving him an OPS of 1.008. Glaus led the American League in homers that year with 47. The third basemen also had a streak of three seasons in-a-row with over 100 RBIs, reaching a career high 111 in 2002, the year the Angels won the Fall Classic. He won the World Series MVP that year when he had six extra-base hits and eight RBIs in seven games.
Anderson played in over 2,000 regular season games in his 15 seasons with the Angels. Other than his debut season when he played in just five games, Anderson played in at least 106 games in his years with the Angels. The closest he got to winning MVP was in 2002 when he finished fourth in the AL. He hit 29 home runs and a career high 56 two-baggers that year.
Baylor won AL MVP in 1979. He slashed .296/.371/.530 that year with 72 extra-base hits. He also led the league in runs scored (120) and RBIs (139) that season while playing in 162 games. That was one of Baylor’s best years of his career. He played six seasons with the Angels, hitting 141 long balls and 140 doubles with 853 total hits.
Don Baylor (Image from Pinterest)
Grich didn’t start his career with the Angels, but he played 10 seasons for them after seven with Baltimore. In those 10 years he made three All-Star games and won a Silver Slugger award. The year he won a Silver Slugger award, he led the American League in slugging percentage (.543), OPS+ (165) and tied for most home runs in the American League (22).
Molina played in over 700 regular season games with the Angels. He caught in over 100 games in four seasons while he was there. His career slash line with the team is .273/.309/.397 with 362 RBIs and 678 hits. Molina won back-to-back Gold Glove awards in 2002 and 2003.
Uniform Number 11 Retired by the Angels in 1998
Fregosi played on the first Angels team in 1961 when he was just 19-years-old. He stayed with the team through 1971. In that span, he won a Gold Glove and made six All-Star games. In his last nine seasons with the Angels, Fregosi played in at least 107 games each season. Fregosi had one of his best seasons offensively with the Angels in 1970 when he slashed .278/.353/.459.
Hall of Fame Inductee in 1999
Uniform Number 30 Retired by the Angels in 1992
Ryan pitched for four teams in his lengthy 27-year career, spending eight seasons with the Angels. In his time there, he pitched 2,181 1/3 innings and recorded 2,416 strikeouts in the regular season. His 3.07 ERA with the Angels is his lowest of the four teams he pitched on. One of his best seasons was in 1973 when he posted a 2.87 ERA and recorded his single-season best 383 strikeouts.
Troy Percival (Image from NBC Los Angeles)
Percival debuted with the Angels in 1995 and stayed with the club until 2004. In that span, Percival had 316 saves and 680 strikeouts in 586 2/3 innings pitched. Percival is also a member of the 2002 World Series team. It was the only year Percival pitched in the playoffs, and he posed a 2.79 ERA in 9 2/3 innings of work, including 3 1/3 scoreless innings in the 2002 ALCS.
Feature Image Courtesy of Fox Sports 2.
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