OC Register: Why have so many Angels pitchers struggled this season?

[Angel Oracle]

1 hour ago, Chuckster70 said:

Totally overlooked in the difference between this years rotation vs. 2022

Everyone wanted Thaiss because of his potential bat, but besides just his poor catcher's ERA, he clearly misses so many borderline pitches because of a poor setup behind the dish which makes his attempt at pitch framing too obvious or too late.

He's batting just .222 with a .675 OPS.

Need a real backup catcher to O’Hoppe next season.

[DCAngelsFan]

Good article, even if it illuminates part of the reason this is yet-another lost season, for yet-more entirely avoidable mistakes and errors in judgement.

Wtf is wrong with this organization? 

Blessed with two future 1st ballot hall-of-famers, cursed with stupid turtles all the way down ...

 

 

 

[stormngt]

7 hours ago, Swordsman78 said:

Once again it appears the analytics guys are f-ing everything up.

 

A great coach once told me

"Free their minds"  they can't  think too much.  If they do they will second guess and fail to perform.

It sounds like analytics are making them think too much.

Edited August 18, 2023 by stormngt

[full circle]

2 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

Totally overlooked in the difference between this years rotation vs. 2022

Everyone wanted Thaiss because of his potential bat, but besides just his poor catcher's ERA, he clearly misses so many borderline pitches because of a poor setup behind the dish which makes his attempt at pitch framing too obvious or too late.

He's batting just .222 with a .675 OPS.

Maybe he’s tipping pitches haha.  I know some on here fall for that. 

[full circle]

All of this is to say we have stupid people that don’t know baseball running our team and it shows all over the field.  
 

Baseball is a situational game that can’t be played by a script.   

[REDneck]

Just more evidence of a dysfunctional organization. Multi million dollar business being ran like a bikini car wash without the entertainment value.

I made the reference to business and someone will point out that Arte is probably making money hand over fist. True, but he's not winning titles.

[Swordsman78]

26 minutes ago, full circle said:

All of this is to say we have stupid people that don’t know baseball running our team and it shows all over the field.  
 

Baseball is a situational game that can’t be played by a script.   

Excellent take.   Stupid "anonymous" people who never are held accountable.  Hiding in the shadows F-ing everything up while the coaches get BBQ'd on social media.

For once it would be nice to hear a coach at a post game media scrum say "I wanted to leave the pitcher in, but was over ruled by Harold in analytics".   Or "Detmers couldn't shake off the sweeper that Bregman homered on because Einstein in analytics was calling the pitches tonight".

[Duren, Duren]

It's the goddamn Twilight zone regarding the pitching hierarchy and philosophy. 

Treating it like hard, empirical rocket science. With it's own delegation of control and authority. 

Jeez. Might as well try and program robots. No room for individual instinct, feel, experience, unique thought processing. 

'Pitch shaping' as the priority? It's about getting the best results situationally. Which always goes back to the intangibles, competitiveness and execution of the pitcher. Control, location, sequencing and pure skill have always been the essence of pitching.

Analytics have been way too overvalued.

 

[full circle]

4 minutes ago, Swordsman78 said:

Excellent take.   Stupid "anonymous" people who never are held accountable.  Hiding in the shadows F-ing everything up while the coaches get BBQ'd on social media.

For once it would be nice to hear a coach at a post game media scrum say "I wanted to leave the pitcher in, but was over ruled by Harold in analytics".   Or "Detmers couldn't shake off the sweeper that Bregman homered on because Einstein in analytics was calling the pitches tonight".

If it was my career at stake, I’d certainly call out what I felt was a problem.  Ultimately it is your career and you need to do what’s best for you. 

[full circle]

1 minute ago, Duren, Duren said:

It's the goddamn Twilight zone regarding the pitching hierarchy and philosophy. 

Treating it like hard, empirical rocket science. With it's own delegation of control and authority. 

Jeez. Might as well try and program robots. No room for individual instinct, feel, experience, unique thought processing. 

'Pitch shaping' as the priority? It's about getting the best results situationally. Which always goes back to the intangibles, competitiveness and execution of the pitcher. Control, location, sequencing and pure skill have always been the essence of pitching.

Analytics have been way too overvalued.

 

Those things they’re talking about with velo, pitch shaping and spin rate are all things that must be worked on outside of games and really most if not all in the offseason.  There is no mental space available to be thinking about any of that during a game.  During a game you just get guys out. 

[Swordsman78]

1 minute ago, full circle said:

If it was my career at stake, I’d certainly call out what I felt was a problem.  Ultimately it is your career and you need to do what’s best for you. 

Except that coaches who criticize "analytics" are provided with a quick ticket to the exit door.  Ala Mr. Scoccia

[full circle]

If you’re going to insist on a “strategy”, you’d better be able to show proof of concept, or you just look stupid like the Angels do now.  
 

The thing that stuck out most to me in the article was the player saying how the Angels didn’t want them pitching to contact, and damn if that didn’t ring true.  It’s what we watch on a goddamn nightly basis.  If you’re a pitcher that’s afraid of the ball being hit then you’re not a pitcher period.  You can’t pitch scared, you challenge guys with your best stuff and say here, hit it.  

[jsnpritchett]

2 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

Need a real backup catcher to O’Hoppe next season.

Yep, I've been saying this for a while.  Despite some on here who have already anointed him the next Gary Carter, the fact is, we just don't know for sure how he's going to do over a full season.  I'm as excited as anyone by his potential, but it's pretty clear after this season that you don't want Thaiss or Wallach pressed into duty for very long.

[m0nkey]

Gary Sanchez has only played in 61 games but would have the 4th highest fWAR position player WAR on the team (3rd if you use bWAR)

[Jeff Fletcher]

2 hours ago, jsnpritchett said:

Yep, I've been saying this for a while.  Despite some on here who have already anointed him the next Gary Carter, the fact is, we just don't know for sure how he's going to do over a full season.  I'm as excited as anyone by his potential, but it's pretty clear after this season that you don't want Thaiss or Wallach pressed into duty for very long.

I’m not gonna say which one, but there was an early game this year in which a reliever came out looking pretty bad and I have heard subsequently that it was largely because O’Hoppe didn’t know what he should have been calling. They talked to him and he did not make the same mistakes again. 
 

(This also sort of relates to the other thread about O’Hoppe sitting out so he can be eligible for ROY. I think every pitch he catches in 2023 will make him better in 2024.)

[BTH]

21 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

I’m not gonna say which one, but there was an early game this year in which a reliever came out looking pretty bad and I have heard subsequently that it was largely because O’Hoppe didn’t know what he should have been calling. They talked to him and he did not make the same mistakes again. 

Guessing it was Tepera vs. the Blue Jays in that Sunday day game.

(could also be the Friday game vs. Toronto where Herget threw a hanger to Bichette, which I remember arguing about on here)

[REDneck]

8 hours ago, Swordsman78 said:

You "assumed" that (allegedly), but still proceeded to blame Nevin. 

How big is Nevin's sword?

Don't choke out man.

Edited August 18, 2023 by REDneck

[ArkyAngelsFan]

No doubt the Angels will re sign Jacob Webb when he becomes a FA and then mess with him again and watch him fail and get released only to re emerge and become effective again somewhere else.....

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.....

Typical Angels.

~ArkyAngelsFan~

[AngelsLakersFan]

Not a good look for Perry and the organization at all...

One thing not directly mentioned is the effect limited experience is having on these guys. The Angels have been very aggressive promoting guys and I think we are seeing the effects of a poor player development process. All of this reads like the pitching staff and the catching crew trying to develop at the major league level. 

Also, I say this as one of the biggest stat guys on this board, but this is not the way to use analytics. The stats are a tool, but the season is judged on executing wins and losses, not exit velos and spin rates. 

[Rollinghard]

Catchers have to be free to call the game in real time and not be worried that they might get in trouble if they don't call the 27.5 percent CUs that the guy upstairs commanded him to call. What if his CU isn't working well but the sweeper is unhittable that day. Could you image some guy upstairs telling Greg Maddox or John Lackey how to sequence his pitches and what percentage of CUs he is going to throw in tonight's game. 

[Inside Pitch]

The pitching has been THE problem the entire year.  It's not even that they are bad, they have just been wildly inconsistent for the most part.  This article kind of makes the inconsistencies make a bit more sense.

Hopefully they find a balance that works and get everyone on the same page -- it sucks they didn't get to really go all in on the metric stuff until after the managerial change last year, maybe they would have had it all fleshed out by now.

[BTH]

12 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

Hopefully they find a balance that works and get everyone on the same page -- it sucks they didn't get to really go all in on the metric stuff until after the managerial change last year, maybe they would have had it all fleshed out by now.

I think they'll need an entirely new coaching staff to flesh it out.

Wise doesn't seem to be big on the metric stuff. Maddon wrote in his book that Wise was the "messenger" and didn't love being the "messenger."

[Stradling]

On 8/17/2023 at 3:35 PM, Swordsman78 said:

Except that coaches who criticize "analytics" are provided with a quick ticket to the exit door.  Ala Mr. Scoccia

Yep that quick ticket for Scioscia was 19 years. 

[Stradling]

@Jeff Fletcher this is one of the best articles I have read in quite some time, even if it does paint guys I like a certain way.  It also shows that us fans really are simpletons and want to blame one person for when a team struggles or a part of the team struggles.  I think we were all excited about getting the guy from Driveline, but it seems as though the pitchers really don’t care for him if I read that right, or maybe a better way to put it is they don’t care for his input.  Wise is not the problem, but he could be part of the problem.  

I undervalued what a catcher brings to the table outside of what I can see, which at times were predictable pitch calling, or poor framing.  It’s obvious there is more to catching that what stats tell us, considering Martin Maldonado is still catching most of the games for Houston and Jeff Mathis caught for 17 years.  I didn’t think about the role Stassi and Suzuki could have played behind the scenes in the communication piece of game planning.  

I think Perry is being disingenuous when he says he was unaware of these problems.  I am sure he is aware, but its an easier answer than calling out a portion of the process.

As for the fixation on spin rate and strike outs, how bout you solve the actual problem.  Get a real catcher, maybe that is Stassi next year, with a AAAA type of catcher on the 40 man for next year to be the 3rd catcher.  Fix the infield defense, so you don’t have to strike everyone out.  Get feedback from the players on how they want to receive the data.  If it is still in their heads when they are pitching, then the focus on data was either over focused or focused on too much just prior to taking the mound.  For those of you who’ve been around awhile will remember the big blow up that ultimately lead to Dipoto bitching out, was over him coming into the clubhouse and putting information in front of the players and Scioscia telling him there’s a time and place for that.

Oh and everyone is to blame, the coaches, the analytic guys, the manager and the pitchers themselves.  It’s the big leagues and it is a performance based league.  Gotta get outs.

[AngelsFaninGA]

It does seem like they lack the resources/talent/bandwidth in the analytics department to make adjustments throughout the season. They put together a rough approach to start each season, then just ride it out for the entire year and reevaluate after the season since it sounds like they can't catch up to the speed of information in order to make adjustments on the fly.