The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have had a nice share of hype the last year or so. With faces like Justin Upton, Shohei Ohtani, Zack Cozart, and Ian Kinsler coming to the team, it’s understandable. Their fans have been laying under the sand of the MLB for close to 4 years, with only 1 playoff under their belt for the current decade. In that playoff, they were swept by the Kansas City Royals in 3 games. Now, the true test commences. After numerous winning records with no playoff experiences, they are going to try their best this year to bring themselves back to October baseball. Now, with the roster they have, can they make it back to the postseason?
Offseason Additions
To try and bring themselves back to the postseason, they added a hefty amount of solid players during the 2018 offseason to compliment Mike Trout and some of the other guys. They will mostly rely on their hitting to take them to the end, and the hitting additions have been pretty impressive.
Justin Upton
Justin Upton was by far an incredible addition to the Angels outfield. He was originally traded from the Tigers to the Angels and afterwards signed to a massive $106 million contract for 5 years. Upton highlighted 2017 with a year far better than his 2016 year, changing his AVG from .246 to .273 and his OPS from .775 to .901. He also had a great amount of hits at 152 and 44 doubles, making him tied for fourth in the MLB with doubles, tied with Elvis Andrus and Francisco Lindor. He also had a positive 74 walks, 25th in the MLB, but a negative 180 strikeouts, 6th in the MLB.
Now, Upton is a very impressive outfielder without a doubt. He very much helps the Angels in left field, which was pretty barren before his arrival. Now, he’s able to complement the generational stud Mike Trout with his great hitting and will no doubt greatly help the Angels hitting in general in the cleanup spot or around there. While his defense is a bit below average, as his consistency with catches was 97.6% compared to the league outfield average which is at 98.5%, it won’t be much of a terrible problem, as he can just play at DH if the unlikely possibility happens.
Shohei Ohtani
Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani decided to make a big leap to the big leagues. He drew big interest from many teams, such as the Cubs, Mariners, Angels, and Yankees. Now, his 2017 stats don’t show many games, but his last year of a good amount of hitting and pitching was in 2016, when he was only 21. That year, he had a 1.86 ERA, a 10-4 record, 174 strikeouts, 45 walks, and a 0.96 WHIP in 140 innings pitched. For hitting, he had 22 HR, 67 RBI, a .322 AVG, a .416 OBP, a .588 SLG, and a 1.004 OPS in 382 at bats. Now, these are really good stats and it makes it obvious that Ohtani would greatly help any rotation and lineup by joining their team.
Shohei gives a much needed boost to the Angels’s rotation. They’ve been dying for a stud for awhile, as the rotation mainly consists of a bunch of 4 ERA+ pitchers. Their highest ranked ERA between the starters last year was held by Ricky Nolasco, who had an unimpressive 4.92 ERA. Now, with a stud like Ohtani, they’ll be able to better handle the teams that are trying to compete in the AL West. They’ll also get a good power boost to the lineup, complementing Trout, Upton, Cozart, Kinsler, etc. Overall, Ohtani should greatly help the team.
Zack Cozart
Zack Cozart came to the Angels off of a 3 year and $38 million contract in the offseason. In 2017, Cozart played for the Reds and had a career year. He managed to increase his AVG from .252 in 2016 to .297 in 2017 and his OPS increased from .732 in 2016 to .933 in 2017. He also saw increases in his OBP, SLG, HR, and RBI. All of his very impressive stats and increases gave him the starting shortstop position over Corey Seager in the 2017 All Star Game. One of his biggest positives in 2017 is due to his great eye. In 2017, he had 62 walks and 78 strikeouts, which is very impressive. This means he had a 12.2% chance of getting a walk and a 15.4% chance to strike out. He also drew an impressive 4.19 pitches per plate appearance.
All of Cozart’s skills, like his batting eye, power, and contact, will help the Angels greatly. Since he is very versatile, the Angels can rely on him for many situations. For example, they can rely on him to get on base when he’s hitting behind Trout and/or Upton , or pull in runs with men on base if he’s batting cleanup or behind in the 6th spot. His defense is also pretty good, and they shouldn’t be worrying about it. His consistency rate is at a solid 97.5%, while the league average at his shortstop position was 97.3%. Overall, he’ll be a great addition to the above average Angels infield, with him at third base, Simmons at shortstop, Kinsler at second base, and Pujols at first base.
Ian Kinsler
Ian Kinsler came to the Angels with a trade from the Tigers during the offseason. In 2017, Kinsler had a pretty drop-off year playing second base with Detroit. His AVG dropped off from .288 in 2016 to .236 in 2017 and his OPS went from .831 in 2016 to .725 in 2017. His OBP and SLG also saw decreases going from .348 to .313 and .484 to .412. His HR count dropped a bit, going from 28 to 22, but his RBI saw a big decrease as it went from 83 to 52. Like Cozart however, he has ball and strikeout counts are very similar, showing that he has at least a decent eye. Last year, he had 55 walks and 86 strikeouts. This means that he had an 8.9% chance to walk during a plate appearance and a 14% chance to strikeout.
Although Kinsler did have mostly unimpressive stats in 2017, he should be able to decently help the Angels. In 2017, the Angels needed second base help badly as they were transitioning between guys like Kaleb Cowart, Danny Espinosa, Cliff Pennington, and Brandon Phillips the whole year. None of them had an OPS above .700 as an Angel, Cowart had a .695, Espinosa had a .513, Pennington had a .635, and Phillips had a .652. Kinsler provides them with a nice piece at second due to his solid batting eye and average defense, as his consistency at second is at 98.3% which was also the league average for a second baseman. Overall, he should help the Angels at least decently.
Hitting Core
The Angels have an arsenal of solid hitters at their disposal to compliment the solid guys I mentioned above. The best one is Mike Trout, a generational player who’s stellar in pretty much every way possible for a center fielder. Last year, he hit a .306 AVG, .442 OBP, .629 SLG, and a 1.071 OPS. He also had a solid 33 HR and 72 RBI, as well as 94 walks and 90 strikeouts. All of this is pretty impressive even with his 402 at bats because of a thumb injury in the middle of the season. Trout is also a very consistent defender, having a consistency of 99.6% of balls thrown to him caught, with 98.7% being the league average in center field, his position.
Another solid player in the Angels’ arsenal is shortstop Andrelton Simmons. Simmons is a good hitter, last year having a .278 AVG, 14 HR, 69 RBI, .331 OBP, .421 SLG, and a .752 OPS in 589 at bats. Now, these are impressive, as it shows Simmons is a guy who focuses on getting himself on to let others like Trout, Upton, etc to get him home. He’s a decent leadoff man because of this. His defense is also exceptional, as he won a gold glove last year and had a consistency of 98%, while the league average in his position was 97.5%.
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Though Simmons and Trout are great, the Angels don’t have many players performing up to their level, but who are still decent. In right field, you have Kole Calhoun, who dropped off a bit in 2017, with his average being .244, his OBP being .333, his SLG being .392, and his OPS being .725. He also had 19 HR, 71 RBI, and a slightly above average consistency in the field, having a 98.8%.
They also have DH/1B Albert Pujols, who is undoubtedly one of the greatest hitters ever to play the game, but has fallen off from his old form as he nears his 40’s. In 2017, he had a .241 AVG, 23 HR, 101 RBI, .286 OBP, .386 SLG, and a .672 OPS. Now, Pujols isn’t much of a great hitter, which puts him at more of a 5-8 position. At 5, he can be a last resort to pull in runs after Trout and Upton, but lower he can benefit by using his power in more of a worse spot in the lineup, although he certainly won’t have as much RBI. Finally, they have catcher Martín Maldonado, who came to the Angels off of a trade from the Brewers. Last year, Maldonado had a .221 AVG, 14 HR, 38 RBI, .276 OBP, .368 SLG, and a .645 OPS. He’s definitely a back-end man, as you don’t want him trying to pull in runs in some clutch situations.
Pitching Core
Their pitching core has been a large rough patch in the organization, but has been partially fixed over the last year. I’ve already talked about Shohei Ohtani and what he could bring to the team, but they also have guys like Tyler Skaggs, Nick Tropeano, Garrett Richards, and Andrew Heaney. All of them last year had ERAs averaging a ton of different numbers last year. Skaggs had a 4.55 in 16 games started, Tropeano had a 3.56 in 13 games started, Richards had a 2.28 in 6 games started, and Heaney had a 7.06 in 5 games started. All of them are off to good starts this year, with all of them having ERAs below 4 except for Heaney, who has an ERA over 9.
The bullpen is also a bit wild, with ERAs all over the place. Some immediate standouts are Keynan Middleton, the new closer who had a 3.86 ERA in 64 games last year for the Angels. Blake Parker was also great, having a 2.54 ERA in 71 games in 2017. José Alvarez was also doing pretty solid, having a 3.88 ERA in 64 games.
Competition
Their largest competition would definitely have to be the Twins, and this one is very close. They have a great hitting squad with Brian Dozier, Joe Mauer, Miguel Sanó, Max Kepler, Eddie Rosario, and Eduardo Escobar. They lost their ace Ervin Santana, but managed to get some decent replacements in trading for Jake Odorizzi and signing Lance Lynn. They also have a solid bullpen consisting of Fernando Rodney, Addison Reed, and Taylor Rogers. Also, Ervin Santana could come back this summer, so they could have him going full force by September which will force the Angels to step up their game.
They have some competition as well with the Mariners. Now, the Mariners are definitely not great, but you can’t disregard a hitting core with Dee Gordon, Jean Segura, Robinson Canó, Nelson Cruz, and Kyle Seager. Ben Gamel could also be a threat if he returns to his full form from last year and Dan Vogelbach could make some noise with his power this year. They also have Félix Hernández, Mike Leake, and James Paxton in the rotation, who could put up some solid numbers. In the bullpen, they have Edwin Díaz, Juan Nicasio, Nick Vincent, Marc Rzepczynski, and James Pazos.
In my opinion, the Angels will come very close to the Wild Card this year, but will barely miss. I mean, the new additions I did hype, but some of them like Upton and Cozart had career years in 2017 and Ohtani doesn’t have much MLB experience. Of course, you can’t sniff at Trout and Simmons, as well as some of the pitchers like Middleton and Parker in the pen, as well as possibly Richards, Skaggs, and Ohtani in the rotation. My pick is the Twins, due to their experience in pressure, and the overall advantage in some places, like the rotation and possibly the bullpen. There’s a reason people say pitchers win games and in my opinion, the Angels have a chance for the pitchers to break out, but they don’t have the experience and therefore will be more pressured come late August into September. Still, the trade deadline, injuries, and worse or better performances could prove me wrong.
The MLB Enthusiast 