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For Angels fans, these are the worst of times.
Their team is coming off back-to-back last-place finishes for the first time in 50 years. The team 30 miles up the freeway is coming off back-to-back World Series championships, led by a global icon who left Anaheim when the Angels could not deliver a winning team and would not promise him $700 million. The owner says he wants to win but also says winning does not rank among the top-five fan priorities. The Angels and the city of Anaheim remain at a stalemate over what to do about the aging stadium.
The negativity dissipates as a young man walks into the clubhouse, baseball cap on backward for the moment, energetic and respectful and joyful and supremely confident. This is his team, and he is here to win.
Zach Neto is the Angels’ best player. He is 25.
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If the Angels could make one move to try to persuade fans better days are ahead, the suggestion here would be to sign Neto to a long-term contract. They could hold a signing ceremony with the same enormous red banner they used the day they signed Mike Trout to his last extension, with “LOYALTY” splashed across the banner and a halo atop the A.
That loyalty is tested annually. The Angels have baseball’s longest playoff drought — 12 years and counting — and Neto said the Trout drought in particular was a focus of the initial team meeting here.
“We need to help Mike — and we all pointed at Mike — get to the postseason,” Neto said. “He is, if not the greatest player to play this game, one of them. He needs to be in the playoffs.”
Baseball Prospectus projects the Angels to lose 95 games this year, the most in the American League. As we said, Neto is supremely confident.
“We all know and we all believe that, if we play with each other, and if we play how we want to play, there is nobody that can beat us,” he said.
In the year Trout was first eligible for salary arbitration, the Angels signed him to his first long-term contract. This year, when Neto was first eligible for salary arbitration, the Angels did not make him a formal long-term contract offer, according to Ryan Hamill, co-head of CAA Baseball, which represents Neto.
Perry Minasian, the Angels’ general manager, declined to comment for this column.
The parallel only goes so far. Trout had two second-place MVP finishes at that point, and Neto has not gotten any MVP votes. Trout also signed on the eve of a 98-win season, and not long after the Angels’ run of six postseason appearances in eight years.
When I asked Neto whether he would be interested in a long-term contract with the Angels, he talked first of loyalty. When he established himself in high school, bigger schools tried to lure him to transfer. In college, same thing. He did not transfer at either level.
“The biggest thing with me, the biggest thing my family has taught me, is loyalty,” Neto said. “It’s something I still stick with today.
“It’s just a matter of being loyal, seeing the growth that we have here. If it happens, it happens. I would love to stay here. I would love to be here. But, if it doesn’t, then not every road is meant to be.
“I am going to be where my feet are every day, and that is here, with the city of Los Angeles and with the Angels, and give it my all every single day.”
Owner Arte Moreno recently told reporters from the Orange County Register and the team website that, among fans’ priorities, “winning is not in their top five.” Would that be a concern for Neto in deciding whether to sign a long-term contract?
Neto paused.
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“I really don’t have an answer to that,” he said. “But we all know how important the fans are. They help us big time. They motivate us and give us energy. So I’m just going to be where my feet are and go out every single day and play the game.”
He is playing for his fourth manager in four seasons.
Would he harbor any reservations about signing with the Angels and then missing the playoffs as much as Trout has?
“We’ll see,” he said.
Said Hamill: “That is a priority for any player: to have a winning culture and a winning team around him. That’s what he wants, and he wants to do that in an Angels uniform. He wants to go out and compete and win this year. Whatever the front office is willing to do and ownership is willing to do to facilitate that, it would be welcome.”
Neto is an outstanding modern shortstop, with power and speed to complement excellent defense. He ranked third among major league shortstops with 26 home runs last season, and he stole 26 bases.
What is he worth? Neto put up 5.1 WAR last season, according to Baseball Reference.
The four shortstops with the biggest contracts all put up a better WAR: Bobby Witt Jr. (7.1 WAR, $289 million); Corey Seager (6.2 WAR, $324 million); Francisco Lindor (5.9 WAR, $341 million) and Trea Turner (5.4 WAR, $300 million). Neto’s performance fit comfortably above the next financial tier of shortstops: Dansby Swanson (4.5 WAR, $177 million); Willy Adames (3.7 WAR, $182 million) and Xander Bogaerts (2.0 WAR, $280 million).
(Mookie Betts, signed to his $365-million deal as a right fielder before converting to shortstop, put up 4.9 WAR last season.)
Under baseball’s current economic system, Neto cannot become a free agent until after the 2029 season, giving him a chance to improve his game and giving the Angels and his agents plenty of time to determine a mutually agreeable value. On the other hand, the players’ union generally favors earlier free agency, so there is a non-zero chance the Angels could lose some or all of the 2027 season to a lockout and then, in the absence of a long-term deal, lose Neto to free agency after the 2028 season.
Neto left all of that in the hands of his agents last winter, focusing on training but also on a charity bowling tournament to benefit Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in his hometown of Miami.
“My high score is 297,” Neto said with a smile.
Betts, the other shortstop in L.A., has rolled a perfect 300. Neto said he would love to bowl against him. It shouldn’t be a rare event. The Dodgers have signed Betts through 2032. The Angels should do the same with Neto.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.