Los Angeles Angels' offensive woes will be tough to fix this offseason
Thanks to the general weakness of the American League outside of Toronto and Kansas City, somehow the Angels still have a shot at the postseason despite a bunch of disappointing pitchers and a stunning turnaround by their hitters.
How stunning? Monday night the Angels scored three runs in a big game against the Astros, and it wasn't nearly enough. During the game, the Astros' TV guys were talking about the Angels and it went something (OK, exactly) like this ...
Bill Brown: A year ago, the Angels led the league in runs scored, with 773. They haven't hit the 600 mark in runs scored yet this year.
Alan Ashby: So when the Angels led the league in scoring last year, do you think they thought, at all, that they had a chance of becoming this bad, offensively?
Brown: Probably not.
Ashby: "Probably not" is the real answer. And you can do that with a number of categories — wins and losses the big one — where you just don't know what's coming the following year.
Of course the Angels are just another fascinating example of regression to the mean. Which gives me another chance to mention that regression to the mean isn't always a bad thing ... and in fact, in the mathematical world we might consider it a 50/50 proposition exactly.
But in baseball it's probably not. On the team level, if you've played poorly and don't really think about regression, you'll do some things to improve. And probably will. But if you've played well and don't think about regression, you won't do much to improve and so you'll probably get worse.
Which is basically what happened to the Angels.
Or maybe that's not fair. Sure, Chris Iannetta didn't figure to do as well this season as last season. Although his decline has been surprisingly dramatic. And everyone else? The Angels must have known that Johnny Giavotella wouldn't come close to matching Howie Kendrick's production, but that was a conscious choice (which has paid dividends in the form of Andrew Heaney). Erick Aybar's been worse than projected, and the group of left fielders who were supposed to replace Josh Hamilton have been shockingly dreadful, as a group. And the bench — we always forget about the bench, but the bench is equivalent to, what, a couple of full-time players — has been just as dreadful.
Which is how you go from No. 1 to No. 13 in the American League in about two seconds flat.
Can you go from No. 13 to No. 1 in another two seconds?
Well, you can. But it's not likely. Regression's not nearly so even-handed.
Looking at the hitters likely to still be around next season, Iannetta's the only one who seems like a good bet for real improvement, but that's of marginal importance since he's considered such a liability behind the plate that he doesn't figure to play more than half the time, no matter what he's hitting.
On balance, the Angels were probably a little lucky in 2014 — or more than a little lucky, if you want to consider Matt Shoemaker and his 16-4 record — and more than a little unlucky in 2015.
Last winter, Baseball America rated the Angels' farm system the 27th best in baseball, with some impressive pitchers (especially Heaney), but declared "the system (is) bare of athletes and position-player prospects." Not much has changed since then, with not a single rookie hitting more than three homers in the majors, and the preseason No. 1 hitting prospect, second baseman Alex Yarbrough, struggling all season in Triple-A and failing to earn a September promotion. Oh, they also signed a young Cuban shortstop, Roberto Baldoquin, last winter for $8 million — not including the extra $7 million it cost them, because of bonus rules — but he was injured and ineffective in the California League all summer.
Management — that is, Mike Scioscia and his hand-picked general manager — will have its hands full this winter. Because once you get past Mike Trout and Heaney (if he continues to develop), there just aren't many championship-quality players on the current 40-man roster.
The Angels are highly fortunate to be hanging around the fringe of the wild-card race, and they'll be fortunate to finish higher than third place in 2016.
