The Los Angeles Angels 2022 Starting Rotation

[Warfarin]

1 hour ago, angelsnationtalk said:

Seeing a guy drafted in the 11th round of last years draft come in and pitch goose eggs is such a Perry flex. 

Yes, I know it's Oakland, but given how we always find way to lose against them makes it more special. 

If Silseth becomes a hidden gem who knows what else Perry has up his sleeve with these others pitchers. 

By far the greatest impact Perry and his FO can have on this team is by drafting well and developing talent.  It's a lengthy process (usually), so time will only tell, but the fact that we had a guy taken in the draft last July make his debut and pitch well literally 10 months later is astounding.

Of note, Kerry (5th round pick) is dominating AA and leading the league in Ks, and our two highest picks are in AA as well.  Drafting and developing is what makes teams into perennial legit contenders.  Arguably, we already have the hardest part, which is star talent - we just need Perry to develop solid complementary pieces for those stars.

[REDneck]

The pitching and defense are the most encouraging aspects of this team.

I'm starting to believe this team can sustain this good start to the season with how well the pitching and fielding are doing.

Defense doesn't slump and good pitching is less prone to slumping than a good offense.

Now if Rendon can continue to improve to vintage Rendon...we may really have something going on.

[stormngt]

How much is the dead ball benefitting the Angels over other teams?

It has been stated that the Angels are not striking out a lot of batters.  Just speculating, I would think the deadball would help a pitch to contact pitcher v a flamethrower.

[Inside Pitch]

Not sure how people are using the term flamethrower.  But the Angels SPs vFA (pi) which is basically their average FB velocity is the 8th best in MLB at 94.4 -- this despite the bullpen actually having a weaker average FB velocity than the starting staff.   K rates aren't solely tied to radar reading, it's not uncommon to see poor defensive teams see spikes in their K/9 rates in part because the pitchers don't trust the defense.

If anyone needs a reminder.  The Angels collection of cast offs last year were sporting a K/9 rate of 9.2, just outside the top 10 (11th), despite an average FB velocity 2 MPH lower.  Nobody seemed less willing to trust the defense than Quintana, he of the career best 12.3 k/9 rate -- 4.3 above his career average of 8.0.  It's also not like the team featured more fly ball pitchers, their GB rate was actually higher last season.

The one thing that is a legit argument is that when a pitcher isn't concerned with FBs resulting in cheap HR's they will be more willing to pitch to contact. 

League wide K/9 is down 0.4.  H/9 is down by 0.4 and HR/9 is down 0.3.

 

[HeavenlyHalos]

7 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Not sure how people are using the term flamethrower.  But the Angels SPs vFA (pi) which is basically their average FB velocity is the 8th best in MLB at 94.4 -- this despite the bullpen actually having a weaker average FB velocity than the starting staff.   K rates aren't solely tied to radar reading, it's not uncommon to see poor defensive teams see spikes in their K/9 rates in part because the pitchers don't trust the defense.

If anyone needs a reminder.  The Angels collection of cast offs last year were sporting a K/9 rate of 9.2, just outside the top 10 (11th), despite an average FB velocity nearly 2 MPH lower.  Nobody seemed less willing to trust the defense than Quintana, he of the career best 12.3 k/9 rate -- 4.3 above his career average of 8.0.  It's also not like the team featured more fly ball pitchers, their GB rate was actually higher last season.

The one thing that is a legit argument is that when a pitcher isn't concerned with FBs resulting in cheap HR's they will be more willing to pitch to contact. 

League wide K/9 is down 0.4.  H/9 is down by 0.4 and HR/9 is down 0.3.

 

Excellent post. This has greatly increased the value of Velasquez who has a .5 fWAR despite sporting a 66 wRC+. This is also why he is pretty much universally supported on here for the starting SS job.

[Hubs]

On 5/15/2022 at 10:03 AM, Warfarin said:

Diaz strikes me as more of an up-and-down, quad AAAA starter.  It’s worth noting he was pulled from his last start after exactly two turns through the lineup, despite not having thrown a ton of pitches.  That suggests they didn’t want him to face hitters a third time, even with a reasonable pitch count.

He's been in the minors quite a bit longer than Sisleth (or Detmers for that matter), but it's been a successful 5 years in the minors. His stuff is not as good as Sisleth or Detmers, but he's not a bad pitcher.

[jsnpritchett]

7 minutes ago, Hubs said:

He's been in the minors quite a bit longer than Sisleth (or Detmers for that matter), but it's been a successful 5 years in the minors. His stuff is not as good as Sisleth or Detmers, but he's not a bad pitcher.

*Silseth.

[Hubs]

Just now, jsnpritchett said:

*Silseth.

Thanks, that's gonna take me a while to get right consistently.

[ten ocho recon scout]

I think the Rays series was huge. We dominated, on both sides of the ball. And theyre a very good team.

Beating up on Oakland is one thing, and it took a miracle to pull out the walk off against the Nats. But weve taken a series against the Rays and Astros in the past 3 weeks or so.

Thats a great sign.

I dont know how long this will keep up. But we definitely have pitching for the first time in years and years. And we finally have an actual offense, not just Trout.

And if Adell comes around we have a great call up.

[Warfarin]

16 minutes ago, Hubs said:

He's been in the minors quite a bit longer than Sisleth (or Detmers for that matter), but it's been a successful 5 years in the minors. His stuff is not as good as Sisleth or Detmers, but he's not a bad pitcher.

Well, being a Quad A starter doesn't make him a bad pitcher.  Just not sure if he's someone who will become a mainstay in the rotation for us, but rather, might serve as useful depth and someone who will make various spot starts throughout the year.

[HeavenlyHalos]

33 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

I think the Rays series was huge. We dominated, on both sides of the ball. And theyre a very good team.

Beating up on Oakland is one thing, and it took a miracle to pull out the walk off against the Nats. But weve taken a series against the Rays and Astros in the past 3 weeks or so.

Thats a great sign.

I dont know how long this will keep up. But we definitely have pitching for the first time in years and years. And we finally have an actual offense, not just Trout.

And if Adell comes around we have a great call up.

I think this, coupled with the Boston comeback, makes the loss on Saturday easier to swallow (gross). Obviously, still frustrating but I think our closer will blow (gross) fewer games than our offense will come from behind against other teams.

[Angel Oracle]

Pitching being 3rd in AL ERA and even better 2nd in AL WHIP is crazy change from the past several seasons.

Important thing is the regular five starting pitchers now getting at least into the 6th, 7th innings.  Pitching to contact lessens pitch counts.

[ettin]

On 5/15/2022 at 9:52 AM, Angelsjunky said:

Can someone who is fat be a fattist? I'm not hugely fat, but I am an American.

I don't know, but because he is fat, he can speak to fat things.

Edited May 16, 2022 by ettin

[Second Base]

Pitchers league wide are performing better this year. Offense league wide is down this year. 

MLB likes to F with the parameters upon which they design their ball, with it somtimes being juiced and sometimes being deadened. 

And quite frankly, I just don't trust Manfred. He's shown that he'll change the ball mid year to fit his goals for the game and changes his mind all the damn time. 

Are the Angels pitching well? Absolutely.

But summer is coming, and MLB is likely to panic come mid June that the ball isn't flying and they won't have a narrative to push and excite fans with, and so they'll probably go back to the juiced balls again and ERA is likely to balloon. And then we'll all be artificially angry that our pitching sucks again, whenin reality, it wasn't as good as we thought nor as bad as we think. 

Manfred sucks. 

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Second Base

[Hubs]

I don’t know if Diaz is a quad A pitcher. He just may not be on Silseth or Detmers level. But neither were Garrett Richards, Patrick Sandoval, either. Diaz has thrown two shutouts. He’s good to have for depth.

[ten ocho recon scout]

2 hours ago, HeavenlyHalos said:

I think this, coupled with the Boston comeback, makes the loss on Saturday easier to swallow (gross). Obviously, still frustrating but I think our closer will blow (gross) fewer games than our offense will come from behind against other teams.

Obligatory @Dochalo is a fan of D

[Vlad27Trout27]

Besides a few hiccups the Rotation has been solid, but can we give a hand to how good the Bp has been! The big 3 have been lights out! Ortega took that big step that we needed! Jimmy herget, Yes that F'n Jimmy herget has been solid! 

[Angelsjunky]

Funny what a few days can do. If we look at the rotation through the lens of WAR:

Ohtani 1.2

Sandoval 0.9

Syndegaard 0.6

Lorenzen 0.3

Detmers 0.2

All five have pitched 30-35 innings, so if we times them by 5 we get rough paces for the season.

Meaning, Ohtani has pitched like an ace, Sandoval like a #2, Syndergaard like a #3, and Lorenzen and Detmers like #4-5s. That's still quite solid, but not quite as good as it looked a week ago.

Hopefully Silseth can follow up his first start with another good one.

 

[IheartLA]

It's been pretty clear 1. Ohtani 2. Sandoval 3. Syndergaard so far. That's how we'd lineup if the playoffs was tomorrow. I think the K/9 of Noah, Reid, Lorenzen is worrisome. They're at Jered Weaver territory, getting results for the most part but the peripherals for those 3 aren't as solid as Ohtani/Sandoval.

[Docwaukee]

18 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

Funny what a few days can do. If we look at the rotation through the lens of WAR:

Ohtani 1.2

Sandoval 0.9

Syndegaard 0.6

Lorenzen 0.3

Detmers 0.2

All five have pitched 30-35 innings, so if we times them by 5 we get rough paces for the season.

Meaning, Ohtani has pitched like an ace, Sandoval like a #2, Syndergaard like a #3, and Lorenzen and Detmers like #4-5s. That's still quite solid, but not quite as good as it looked a week ago.

Hopefully Silseth can follow up his first start with another good one.

 

part of the reason you won't see them accumulate as much WAR as typical is because of the lack of innings due to a 6 man rotation.  It's hard to speculate what they would be doing if that was the 5 man rotation but that could add another 20% or so to their total.  

[tdawg87]

It's good they're all in the positive.

[Angelsjunky]

3 hours ago, Dochalo said:

part of the reason you won't see them accumulate as much WAR as typical is because of the lack of innings due to a 6 man rotation.  It's hard to speculate what they would be doing if that was the 5 man rotation but that could add another 20% or so to their total.  

Yes, true. And of course, even if they were in five-man rotation, 150 IP is the new 200 IP (the baseline for what you expect from a full-time starter). 

Either way, all of a sudden Chase Silseth has become a rather important pitcher.

[Chuck]

 

[Angel Oracle]

Still 3rd lowest AL team ERA (3.37) and 2nd lowest AL team WHIP (1.11)

[Revad]

On 5/16/2022 at 4:11 PM, Second Base said:

Pitchers league wide are performing better this year. Offense league wide is down this year. 

MLB likes to F with the parameters upon which they design their ball, with it somtimes being juiced and sometimes being deadened. 

And quite frankly, I just don't trust Manfred. He's shown that he'll change the ball mid year to fit his goals for the game and changes his mind all the damn time. 

Are the Angels pitching well? Absolutely.

But summer is coming, and MLB is likely to panic come mid June that the ball isn't flying and they won't have a narrative to push and excite fans with, and so they'll probably go back to the juiced balls again and ERA is likely to balloon. And then we'll all be artificially angry that our pitching sucks again, whenin reality, it wasn't as good as we thought nor as bad as we think. 

Manfred sucks. 

 

I wonder if we’ve been using left over balls from 2021 (the deader of the two used) and eventually we’ll see the more lively balls (gross).  Once they use those up will we see the more lively 2021 balls or maybe even balls made for this year?

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/four-questions-mlb-needs-to-answer-after-report-reveals-league-used-two-different-baseballs-in-2021/