The First Ten Games - offense, defense, and pitching

[Angelsjunky]

Ten games in the season, a 6-4 record, 1st place in the AL West and tied for the best record in the American League. But it is early, and 6-4 isn't really all that impressive.

But how are the different components of the team doing? Let's take a look...

Offense: 127 wRC+ (4th in majors)

wRC+ is my favorite purely offensive stat - think of it like a more sophisticated version of OPS+. Only the Indians Guardians (134), Cubs (128) and Mets (128) have been better. That 127 wRC+ is Jared Walsh's total from last year - meaning, the Angels, as a whole, have hit like Jared Walsh.

Now a lot of this is on account of small sample size performances by guys like Jack Mayfield, Taylor Ward, Matt Duffy, and Tyler Wade that we can't expect to continue, at least on their current level. Again, small sample sizes. But it is also worth noting that Shohei Ohtani (107) is just getting going and Anthony Rendon (82) has yet to catch fire. Meaning, some of the losses will be regained by the stars positively regressing.

It is also worth noting that the Angels lead the majors with 15 HR, yet have no player with more than 3 (Ohtani), but several with 2 each (Trout, Walsh, Adell), and six with 1 each. Meaning, they're evenly distributed. And the power will continue: Trout and Ohtani have both had 45 HR seasons; Walsh, Adell, and Rendon have either had or are capable of 30 HR seasons; Stassi, Marsh, Ward, and Mayfield are all probably capable of 20 HR or more, if given the playing time. Meaning, the Angels have nine guys who could theoretically hit 20+ HR...if given the playing time.

The Angels are also tied with a couple of teams for second in the majors with 9 SB, just one behind the Dodgers.

And the bad? Well, their -0.9 BsR is tied for second lowest - meaning, they've been stealing bases, but not running the bases very well (as anyone watching can verify). Their walk rate (9.3%) is middle-of-the-pack, but their strikeout rate (25.6%) is 7th highest. Oh yeah, their BABIP (.310) is also 7th highest. 

We're likely going to see regression downward - and few teams even manage a 120 wRC+ all season. In fact, the best since 1901 was--you guessed it--the 1927 Yankees with 126. Ignoring 2020, the best in recent years was the 2019 Astros with 124, third highest all-time. 

Pitching (4.45 ERA, 22nd in majors; 4.46 FIP, 24th in majors)

The pitching hasn't been as good, however - which is a bit surprising, considering how good the starting pitching was through the first cycle of the rotation (1.91 ERA). In the second cycle so far, it has been far worse with a 6.57 ERA in the last four starts. The good news is that the starters have had a 3.58 FIP over those four starts, so should improve.

The relief has actually been rather poor overall: 4.57 ERA (26th) and 5.08 FIP (29th). But a lot of that damage was done by the Astros; over the last six games the bullpen has had a 2.45 ERA and 4.03 FIP, and seems to be getting better. Furthermore, Brian Moran and Mike Mayers have given up 7 ER in 1.2 IP (37.72 ERA); everyone else has a 3.46 ERA.

Defense (-1.1 Fld, 16th in majors)

If small sample size stats for offense and pitching are rather dubious, than for fielding they are almost meaningless and we need to draw upon the eyeball test. But I think both Fld and the eyeball test say the same thing: the defense has been decent. Not particularly good, but not particularly bad - and thus, better than last year at this point.

Summary

The offense has been very good, although will likely regress somewhat as over-performing secondary players get more at-bats. But it will remain very good as the top hitters settle into a rhythm. The pitching has been sub-par, but there's reason to expect improvement - as Maddon figures out how to use his bullpen, and the starters even out in terms of their ERA and FIP. The defense has been solid, which is better than last year.

So as things stand right now, it is reasonable to expect that the offense will be very good, the pitching and defense about average. If you add those factors up, you have a team that should win more than they lose, but to what degree remains to be seen.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Angelsjunky

[ScruffytheJanitor]

This tracks with the eye test. The bullpen was destroyed by the 'Stros;  Moran/Herget/ Meyers have sucked. The starting pitching has been promising, but haven't been going deep into games and have had a couple of real duds (Detmers/Ohtani). The Offense has been strong but weird. It feels like its just about to take off if Trout can come back from the HBP. 

 

[Angelsjunky]

2 minutes ago, ScruffytheJanitor said:

This tracks with the eye test. The bullpen was destroyed by the 'Stros;  Moran/Herget/ Meyers have sucked. The starting pitching has been promising, but haven't been going deep into games and have had a couple of real duds (Detmers/Ohtani). The Offense has been strong but weird. It feels like its just about to take off if Trout can come back from the HBP. 

 

One thing worth noting about Herget is that despite his 7.71 ERA, his FIP--which is more indicative of future performance - is 0.10 (!), and thus he has 0.2 fWAR.

This is because Herget has pitched 4.2 innings, given up zero walks or HR and struck out 7.

His ERA is so high because he's given up 7 hits, but four of those were in his first outing. His last three have all been very good: 4.1 IP, 3 hits, 0 walks, 6 Ks, 0 runs.

 

[Angelsjunky]

Meaning, I think Herget will be fine and will be a valuable reliever, if only because he offers a very different look than the other pitchers. In fact, if I were to guess who would be in the bullpen for the stretch run, he'd be behind only Iglesias, Loup, Tepera, and Bradley as far as likelihood, just ahead of Warren (who is still somewhat unproven) and Mayers (who it is looking more and more like 2020 was a fluke). 

 

[Angel Oracle]

33 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

Meaning, I think Herget will be fine and will be a valuable reliever, if only because he offers a very different look than the other pitchers. In fact, if I were to guess who would be in the bullpen for the stretch run, he'd be behind only Iglesias, Loup, Tepera, and Bradley as far as likelihood, just ahead of Warren (who is still somewhat unproven) and Mayers (who it is looking more and more like 2020 was a fluke). 

 

Add Buttrey in May and hopefully Quijada by May/June and it could be a solid pen.

Iglesias, Tepera, Loup, Bradley, Herget, Quijada, Mayers, and Buttrey 

Nice depth in AAA with Warren, Ortega, Marte, Wantz, and Peguero

[Angel Oracle]

I like the depth in the INF.

Walsh and Rendon at the corners, Fletcher, Wade, Duffy, Velazquez, and Mayfield for middle INF and backing up 3B

There definitely is promise, assuming decent enough health.

[PattyD22]

50 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

One thing worth noting about Herget is that despite his 7.71 ERA, his FIP--which is more indicative of future performance - is 0.10 (!), and thus he has 0.2 fWAR.

This is because Herget has pitched 4.2 innings, given up zero walks or HR and struck out 7.

His ERA is so high because he's given up 7 hits, but four of those were in his first outing. His last three have all been very good: 4.1 IP, 3 hits, 0 walks, 6 Ks, 0 runs.

 

Funny thing about Herget (aside from the fact he’s Scot Shields doppelgänger) is I didn’t realize he had so much pop in his fastball.  Even with his funky delivery, he was hitting 94 on the gun yesterday, which stunned me.

 

[Angelsjunky]

26 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Add Buttrey in May and hopefully Quijada by May/June and it could be a solid pen.

Iglesias, Tepera, Loup, Bradley, Herget, Quijada, Mayers, and Buttrey 

Nice depth in AAA with Warren, Ortega, Marte, Wantz, and Peguero

I think the latter half of the bullpen is going to be a work in progress for the next two or three months, with some musical chairs going on. Assuming health, Iglesias, Loup, Tepera, and Bradley are locks, probably Barria too. Everyone else has varying degrees of uncertainty, with Herget and Warren less so than, say, Ortega and Quijada. But there are a lot of pieces to work with - and your list doesn't even count the AAA starters that could be employed in the bullpen.

[Taylor]

What about the first 11 games?

[jsnpritchett]

1 minute ago, Taylor said:

What about the first 11 games?

[Vlad27Trout27]

Even tho the offense has picked up of late, I am still not a fan of this line-up, I think with a few changes we can make this line-up more deeper.

1. Marsh

2. Trout

3. Othani

4. Rendon

5. Walsh

6. Ward

7. Stassi

8. Duffy

9. Ward

Rotation, is still a question mark, Its a waiting game and see how we our guys do. Only concern from the Rotation is the lack of Innings. 

Bullpen, I think will be fine. Loup, Tepera and Iggy have been solid. Just need to bridge these together. 

Defense....IDK..

[Stradling]

One thing I’ve noticed is outside of Bregman hitting the ball regularly into the giant hole left by the shift, it doesn’t seem we are playing out of position nearly as bad as last year. I have no idea if the stats support what my eyes are telling me. 

[Jason]

9 hours ago, Vlad27Trout27 said:

Even tho the offense has picked up of late, I am still not a fan of this line-up, I think with a few changes we can make this line-up more deeper.

1. Marsh

2. Trout

3. Othani

4. Rendon

5. Walsh

6. Ward

7. Stassi

8. Duffy

9. Ward

Rotation, is still a question mark, Its a waiting game and see how we our guys do. Only concern from the Rotation is the lack of Innings. 

Bullpen, I think will be fine. Loup, Tepera and Iggy have been solid. Just need to bridge these together. 

Defense....IDK..

I'm assuming one of the two Wards should be Wade. I like this line up as well. I almost like Wade in the lead off due to his speed but his obp isn't that great as he doesn't walk much. I think an argument could be made to put Ward behind Ohtani in the clean up spot and drop Rendon to #6 until he starts contributing with his bat. 

Edited April 19, 2022 by Jason

[PattyD22]

3 hours ago, Stradling said:

One thing I’ve noticed is outside of Bregman hitting the ball regularly into the giant hole left by the shift, it doesn’t seem we are playing out of position nearly as bad as last year. I have no idea if the stats support what my eyes are telling me. 

I think Michael Brantley seems to beat the shift with regularity also, Strad.  Again, both of these guys are good hitters, so I’m not going to keep blaming our pitchers for missing their spots, even though that happens often.

Some guys are just damn good hitters and have no problem hitting the ball the opposite way, like Bregman and Brantley do.

[Docwaukee]

3 hours ago, Stradling said:

One thing I’ve noticed is outside of Bregman hitting the ball regularly into the giant hole left by the shift, it doesn’t seem we are playing out of position nearly as bad as last year. I have no idea if the stats support what my eyes are telling me. 

So the small sample data so far is kinda interesting.  And a bit discouraging frankly but we'll see how it plays out.  

Fangraphs started displaying statcast's OAA (outs above average).  Which is one of the only metrics (to my knowledge) that clearly takes into account the starting point of the fielder and uses something called an 'intercept point' to calculate a probability of whether the play should be made.  They calculate the time and distance the player has to get to the ball and then the speed of the runner to determine the odds of whether that play should result in an out or not.  

It also doesn't used conventional positions but compares results of where the player started regardless of their position.  So if Fletch shifts from 2b to the other side of the bag, he is compared to other players and plays with a similar starting spot.  

FLD, DEF and DRS were metrics I would usually look at.  None of which take into account the starting position of the fielder to my knowledge.  

So a couple of early things that are noticeable.  

- The outfield has been avg at best.  probably slightly below by all metrics.  -2 DRS.  -1 OAA.  Rojas has been worse than Adell by the metrics.  

- The infield is where it gets weird.  +5 DRS.  -6 OAA.  At SS we're +7 in DRS and +2 OAA.  For 2b, -3 DRS and -2 OAA.  And for 3b we are -1 DRS and -5 OAA.  

- Last year overall, we were -29 DRS, and -24 in OAA.  And -32.2 in DEF (worst in baseball) so it was pretty consistently bad.  

Whereas this year so far, there is a huge discrepancy between a metric that takes into account where a guy started and one that doesn't.  

To me it says one of two things.  Either we have really bad defenders being put in a good spot to make plays OR, we have really good defenders being put so far away from the plays.  

The eye test tells me it's likely the latter as Rendon, Velazquez, Fletcher, and Wade are all very good defensively.  Even Walsh is solid.  And that's not taking into account that we get a lift from Stassi being very good.  

I thought maybe @Inside Pitch could take a crack at helping to parse this out.  Because my initial thought is that they're still not positioning as  well as they could.  

 

[Jeff Fletcher]

58 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

To me it says one of two things.  Either we have really bad defenders being put in a good spot to make plays OR, we have really good defenders being put so far away from the plays.  

Or, they’ve only played 11 games. 

[tdawg87]

Face!

[totdprods]

Very ready to be done with the Astros for a couple months. Having played such a good team this many times already is going to have an impact on the numbers and how accurate they are to the ‘truth’.

If they can beat up on Baltimore, Cleveland, Texas and maybe Oakland these next couple of weeks these two Astros series will be a distant memory.

Edited April 20, 2022 by totdprods

[Revad]

7 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Very ready to be done with the Astros for a couple months.

Hard to believe that if they win tonight the Angels will be 3-4 against the Astros, sometimes it seems like luck if we win at all against them.  With a win, 6-5 against the West, 8-5 overall and in first place.

[totdprods]

38 minutes ago, Revad said:

Hard to believe that if they win tonight the Angels will be 3-4 against the Astros, sometimes it seems like luck if we win at all against them.  With a win, 6-5 against the West, 8-5 overall and in first place.

They’re a good team. I hate them. But they’re really good. It feels like you’re playing a team already in playoff form. Zero margin for error. They don’t make many mistakes. They don’t miss many mistakes from the other team. They’re not dominant, but they’re super efficient and disciplined. So many of these games were inches away from going the Angels way or shifting momentum. 

Actually think it was good to get these so many Houston games in this early, even if we lose today. Elevates the Angels’ focus ahead of next teams.

Edited April 20, 2022 by totdprods

[Taylor]

39 minutes ago, Revad said:

Hard to believe that if they win tonight the Angels will be 3-4 against the Astros, sometimes it seems like luck if we win at all against them.  With a win, 6-5 against the West, 8-5 overall and in first place.

But if they lose today then the Angels suck.