Defying the Punchline in Anaheim

 

I watched some of the World Baseball Classic as it happened. I saw the end of the Puerto Rico/Israel game that was a total disaster for a fairly-alright Israeli team, I caught a few other matches that week, and I was watching last night during the final. I think they've done a good job with it overall, and the people who are complaining about seeing their favorite players get injured because of it...why is Jose Altuve your favorite player anyway? I don't wanna talk to you.

[I do agree with the Edwin thing, but that could have happened during the regular season or postseason as well, blaming the WBC on excessive celebration is an odd hill to die on].

The one talking point I heard a lot of during the WBC, especially last night during the final, was 'Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani are two of the best players in the world right now, imagine how good it would be if they played for the same team, OH WAIT'. As if everyone needed another excuse to slag off the Angels. And yes, I will admit, slagging off the Angels is kinda fun, I get that, they've spend so much money on free agents in the last 15 years, and have done diddly squat with them. But using the whole 'how do you not win with two of the best players in the world on your team?' thing, especially during the modern era of baseball when the playoffs are longer and more difficult for the actual best two teams to meet, is a little unfair.

The Angels know they need more than Ohtani and Trout to compete, and they've certainly tried, courting Anthony Rendon, Tyler Anderson and both Loup and Tepera, and bringing up surefire prospects like Jo Adell, Reid Detmers and Livan Soto. None of this has worked. Rendon has been hurt pretty much every contractual year he's had in LA, the relievers have soured in comparison to their pre-Angels work, Adell is still trying to figure out how to compete at major league level, and Detmers, even after a no-hitter, struggled to maintain a steady pace. 

The Angels also had an incredible first month of the season, struggled after mid-May and never recovered, even if Taylor Ward, Luis Rengifo and Patrick Sandoval still provided great work. While it is exceptionally hard to build a roster with big contract pieces limiting the surrounding budget, the Guardians proved how attainable that metric is with really only Jose Ramirez getting the big money. The Angels have more money than that, and have just come across truly terrible luck. Even the intriguing ideas they've come across, like landing Tucker Davidson in a trade, or using Andrew Velasquez as a starting shortstop, don't mean much if the majority of the lineup isn't performing.

I really do think this year is the year they make the playoffs and let Ohtani and Trout play in October, mostly because I don't even know if Ohtani will be playing for the Angels at all next year, but also because i feel like all of this, including the WBC, has built towards something like this, and it'd be really disappointing if it didn't happen. 

Then again, as always, these are the Angels. So you never really know.

Angels Update: That Didn't Work Either Edition

 

Going into this season, the Angels locked up Raisel Iglesias, and added Noah Syndergaard, Tyler Wade and Archie Bradley. All of these pieces are either gone or inactive. And without them, somehow this team had more problems when they did before they went and got any of them.

I'm not gonna lie and say nothing the Angels did this offseason works. Getting Ryan Tepera, Aaron Loup and Jimmy Herget on the same bullpen has actually worked pretty well. Not THRILLINGLY, but well. Herget has a 0.932 WHIP and a 2.42 ERA. Loup and Tepera, as they did on better teams, are just attacking innings and keeping runs down. Even Jaime Barria has become a pretty decent bullpen piece. So even if there's massive holes in the lineup and too many starters that fell off, they at least had the bullpen work.

I'm also just impressed that Mike Trout, despite missing about a month of playing time, still managed to hit 36 homers and 71 RBIs. Imagine how many he would have had with that month. Maybe Judge wouldn't have been lonely chasing the babe. 

I just wish that all of these pieces could be on at once. Like, Trout and Ohtani have been on all year. David Fletcher, after missing a few months with an injury, has been on for the last month and a half. Taylor Ward was truly on in May and never really built on it. Luis Rengifo has been on since August and hopefully can sustain that. Anthony Rendon was actually doing well in April and a bit of June before getting injured. Jared Walsh had 15 homers before getting injured. And where we're at now is that a bunch of people are doing well, but Fletcher's out for a week, and Rendon, Walsh and Andrew Velazquez are all injured for the rest of the year. 

It sucks, because this is a great team on paper, but so many people fail to live up to expectations. Jo Adell has yet to truly make an impact in the majors. Jhonathan Diaz, Janson Junk and Griffin Canning all had short-lived moments of glory for the Angels this year. Max Stassi refused to hit for average at all this year. It's hard for a team to really go for it if everybody underperforms except for the marquee guys. Yes, we gave the Yankees shit last month for all slumping except for Judge, but that was for a month. This is like 4 months where it's down to Ohtani and Trout, and it's the second year of this. 

The Angels need to find a way to make this team work in the ring rather than just potentially. Because neither of these two are getting any younger and they're not gonna be Angels forever. 

Coming Tomorrow- An ex-Angel, ironically, who only did marginally better for himself.

Confess, Fletch

 The oddest part of the first half of the season was the amount of time it took David Fletcher to contact-hit consistently.

In April and May, Fletcher had average around .250/.260, was striking out a bit more often, and wasn't among the WAR leaders, and I was...puzzled. This is David Fletcher we're talking about, one of the most underrated contact hitters in the bigs, and one of the best infield defenders in the AL. Why wasn't he clicking? Well, most of the rest of the team wasn't clicking either. Aside from Ohtani, Trout and Walsh, the rest of this lineup was also a bit stifled by the first few months, and are still pretty stifled by the current run. Lots of people like Jose Iglesias, Kurt Suzuki, Taylor Ward and Justin Upton are only doing so well right now without hitting for average. 

But then...since June, Fletcher has been hitting over .300, and is hitting .478 in July. He's also the highest-ranking non-Ohtani member of the Angels on the team. And considering how meh the Angels have become this year, which is par for the course recently, it is very nice to have a well-rounded performer like Fletcher roaming about and having big games.

Also, we're getting a few more impressive pitching performances up here, like Patrick Sandoval and Alex Cobb. I have no idea what happened to Dylan Bundy, but at least Alex Cobb has been a good Baltimore export. Raisel Iglesias has 19 saves and 63 strikeouts, another solid season for his rolodex. Jose Suarez is succeeding in a swing role, Steve Cishek's having another ramp-up season that will likely be followed by a letdown season for whoever signs him next year.

But...there's so many giant holes in this lineup, man. Without Trout, what can we get done? Without a competent core, what is there to really conquer. The Angels are 4th in the AL West, the Mariners have more of a chance...there's a very small chance of a sudden LA comeback this year. Once again, it's become 'how can we prevent this next year?'. Which has been the question for the last 8 years. 

Coming Tomorrow- One of the many Rockies utility men thrust into the main lineup this year.

The Great LA Flop

I sometimes wonder what might have happened if we got the Angels team that this offseason made it look like we were getting.

I mean, think about it. Ohtani in  peak two-way form? Teheran in his prime? La Stella, Upton and Simmons  all healthy and ready? Trout with another MVP caliber year? That all sounded nice, didn't it? Meanwhile, we're at the halfway point, and Ohtani can't pitch, Teheran's been moved to the bullpen, La Stella and Upton are tanking, Simmons is hurt again, and Trout's arguably  having his most human year yet. All while Seattle and Arlington are ahead of them in the standings.

For a team that has made it a point to spend like a contender, even going as far back as signing Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, the Angels have largely been a disappointment over the last decade. Yes, this team has finished above .500 a few times, and made the playoffs in 2014, but the past 6 seasons  have been progressively timid affairs, slipping further in the standings until we're at a last place finish with Anthony Rendon, Dylan Bundy and Mike Trout all in their prime.

What happened? It's not Maddon's fault, it's not the roster, it's just...this team continues to fall on  bad luck and it's getting harder and harder for them to stand out.

David Fletcher should be at Brandon Lowe levels of mainstream success, as he's hitting .321 with 13 RBIs and a 1.4 WAR. But because he's hidden behind Trout and Rendon, he's not getting the publicity  he deserves. Yes, Anthony Rendon is getting pub, Trout has his 10 homers, and Bundy is making a ton of waves with his 44-K start, but the real lede is being buried. The team could be restructured around Fletcher as well as Trout, and begin  to grow from the farm up rather than spending money on contracts every 5 years and hoping that does something.

I wish the outlook was better for this team...but even with everything they've bought, they may not peep further out of last this year.

Coming Tonight: Former oft-injured Angels hurler, current healthy Padres arm.

Fletcher Lives

I'm liking this trend of rookies who come in and instead of hitting 20 home runs and doing the power thing, they just get 100 hits, beef up their batting average, and just...play baseball like it's supposed to. Mid-year last year we had two of those, at least two that immediately come to mind. One is New York's Jeff McNeil, the other's Anaheim's David Fletcher.

Fletcher is cool, in that he fits right along with the big guns in LA, like Andrelton Simmons, Mike Trout and Tommy La Stella. The Angels, while they do have a 30-home-run guy with Trout, do emphasize the RBI and contact ball. It doesn't always work, but their wins are well fought. And while guys like Justin Bour fail to grasp the concept, Fletcher has been leading all non-Trout Angels in hits, doubles and batting average.

Fletcher, who hit his stride around May, is now thankfully watching the rest of the team hit their stride around now. I mean, Friday night was enough of a sign that the Angels might be competing this year, with an unprecedented combined-no-hitter and subsequent clobbering of the Mariners. We're seeing the returns of Andrelton Simmons, Shohei Ohtani and Justin Upton, and they're all playing pretty damn well. We're also seeing the transformation of Kevan Smith into a starting catcher again, in order to cover for Jonathan Lucroy, and he's been hitting pretty well since getting the gig.

Heck, Trevor Cahill and Matt Harvey are both back from the DL...as are their bloated ERAs. Thankfully the Angels are trying more openers, and that's been going well, as more and more relievers are getting the chance to get time early, while people like Felix Pena, Noe Ramirez and, yes, Cahill, are doing the long-man work in the middle. It may have been the Rays' strategy, but the Angels are copying it damn well.

Will the Angels creep back on the A's-Rangers WC race? Do they have enough to rival the upper half of this crazy division? For the sake of the Skaggs family, I really, really hope so.

Coming Tomorrow- Speaking of things stolen from the Rays...

I Can't See Your Halos

I talked about the Pirates yesterday, and now we have the Anaheim Angels. At the time I am writing this (Tuesday), the Angels have the exact same record as the Pirates. 67-71. Under .500 by a few games. And considering what the Angels had in April (Ian Kinsler, Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, a healthy Zack Cozart), it's just a wee bit of a disappointment.

And the sad part is, when the Angels bulk up with a big star in January or so, it usually is. In 2008, the Angels landed Torii Hunter, and lost to the Red Sox in the playoffs. In 2012, the Angels landed Albert Pujols, and the next year they landed Josh Hamilton, both at the top of their respective free agent classes, and both years they ended in third place...and in 2012, it was third of four, since the Astros were still in the NL. And this year, with Ohtani, Upton, Cozart, and a half-season of Ian Kinsler, they're looking to end in fourth. Behind Seattle.

Injuries doomed this Angels team, sad to say. The entire pitching staff, it seems like (or at least the consistent guys, like Garrett Richards, Matt Shoemaker, Tyler Skaggs and Shohei Ohtani) were on the DL for most of the year (which is normal for Richards at this point), leaving Andrew Heaney as the staff's ace, and Jamie Barria as one of the few positive options the rotation had. Heck, the team went through musical closers, as usual, with Blake Parker being the most healthy option after Cam Bedrosian got injured early yet again, and Kenyan Middleton also had a badly timed DL stint.

There's got to be some good news with this team, besides the Trout and Simmons combo which will always be awesome, and said good news is David Fletcher, a multi-position utility player who's been racking up hits and making a case for himself as a 2019 starter, which he'll probably get. He's a smart move at third base, and with Jefry Marte being a solid defensive option at first, hopefully the Angels will figure out how to complete the infield for 2019, or, at the very most, the rest of 2018.

This team is looking kind of dire...but they still, after all, have Mike Trout. Which is more than I can say for a lot of similar 4th place teams.

Coming Tonight: One of the stowaways from the 2018 Twins, now playing for a...well, Wild Card contender now, but they had the division like a week ago.