In the NFL, Patrick Mahomes makes your team a contender. In the NBA, Nikola Jokic makes your team a contender.
In baseball, as the Angels and their fans know all too well, one player does not make your team a contender. Over the past decade, Mike Trout could not do it all by himself, and he and Shohei Ohtani could not do it all by themselves.
The Angels agreed Monday to a three-year, $63-million contract with pitcher Yusei Kikuchi, according to a person familiar with the deal but not authorized to comment publicly. The team has not announced the deal because Kikuchi has yet to complete his physical examination.
With the deal, the Angels topped the $100-million mark in holiday spending before Thanksgiving, buying six players in their 30s: Kikuchi and fellow starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks, designated hitter Jorge Soler, backup catcher Travis d’Arnaud, backup infielders Scott Kingery and Kevin Newman.
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Kikuchi and Soler are about impact, the others are about depth. But if this is really about contention, the Angels are back to being all about Trout.
How good, really, are the Angels? They lost 99 games last season, the worst team in franchise history. They have resisted a full rebuilding, and the best young player to emerge — shortstop Zach Neto — is coming off shoulder surgery and might not be ready when the new season starts.
No team made the playoffs last season with fewer than 86 victories. Could the Angels really go from 63 victories to 86 in one year?
The Kansas City Royals went from 56 victories (and 106 losses!) two seasons ago to 86 victories last season, and into the playoffs.
The Royals’ primary pickups in free agency: starting pitchers Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha. That couldn’t have worked any better: Lugo and Wacha each finished among the top 10 in earned run average in the American League, and the duo combined to pitch 373 innings.
The Royals’ starters ranked second in the league in ERA, at 3.55. The Angels’ starters ranked last, at 4.97.
Kikuchi and Hendricks combined to pitch 306 innings last season. Hendricks has posted an ERA below 4.00 once in the last four seasons; Kikuchi has done that once in his six major league seasons, but he posted a 2.70 ERA in 10 starts following a trade from the…