What Went Wrong For The Angels This Year
- Updated: August 18, 2016
When the Los Angeles Angels look up in the standings, there are a whole heap of teams above them. They are in last place in the AL West and have one of the worst records in the entire American League. And things aren’t exactly turning in their favor. Los Angeles just lost 11 games in a row during August, which tied a franchise record. The fact that nine of those games were on the road didn’t help matters, but LA hasn’t exactly been a world-beater at home this season either.
What’s gone wrong for the Angels in 2016? The easy answer is everything, or, more accurately, everything besides Mike Trout. Trout is still the best player in baseball and should probably win another AL MVP award this season, though he has essentially no chance because of how bad his team has been.
But outside of Trout, the rest of the Angels have fallen apart. Only four players (as of August 17) have even played 100 games for the Angels because most guys haven’t been deserving of everyday at-bats. C.J. Cron was one of the Angels’ best hitters this year before he went down with a broken hand. He is scheduled to go out on a rehab assignment and may be back with the big club by September, but at this point it is too late to affect the team’s season positively.
Yunel Escobar has also had a pretty good season at the plate; a renaissance season, if it wasn’t for the fact that his poor defense erases nearly all the good things he does with a bat. And he isn’t alone on this front. Cron, Johnny Giavotella and a number of the lesser-used position players are all minus defenders on this club. At least Escobar has been good with the bat to counteract that.
On the other side of the spectrum from Escobar is Andrelton Simmons, a good glove with no bat. With the down batting seasons from Kole Calhoun and Albert Pujols, the Angels’ lineup simply doesn’t have enough weight to it to win ball games. And the defense doesn’t cover up for those shortcomings.
Though the team defense has been below the level fans would have hoped, the pitching is what has really been a disaster, mostly because Trout isn’t able to pitch.
Los Angeles has the third-worst team ERA in the AL and allows the fourth-worst opponent OPS in all of baseball. It is down near the very bottom in quality starts as a staff and overall strikeouts as well. Garrett Richards’ injury really hurt this pitching staff, but even his presence wouldn’t have saved it.
Of all the players who have started at least seven games for LA this season, only Matt Shoemaker has a FIP below 4.50, so we can’t really put too much blame on the defense. Jered Weaver, Hector Santiago, Jhoulys Chacin, Nick Tropeano and Tim Lincecum (the guys responsible for over two-thirds of the team’s starts this season) have all been inarguably terrible. Take Santiago’s 10-4 record and stuff it; he’s been just as bad as the rest of them.
And poor Cam Bedrosian has been the only bright spot for the Angels bullpen. If you’re sensing a pattern here, you know what’s coming and it’s not a coincidence; Bedrosian is on the disabled list. Outside of Trout, the few players who have been reliable for LA this year have been hurt for extended periods. These are the characteristics that make up a lost season.
Not to be forgotten is the final aspect of baseball: base running. The Angels rank 28th in MLB in baserunning runs according to Fangraphs. This incorporates not just stolen base percentage (where the Angels are bad) but also outs on the base paths and taking extra bases (areas where the Angels are also bad). As you might have figured, Trout is one of the best base runners in the sport, not that it matters with what is around him.
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