How the Angels Can Still Finish Below .500 in 2023
It is decreed in the ancient scrolls. Despite employing two of the greatest ballplayers in history, the Angels cannot finish higher than .500. It’s an immutable law of baseball physics that cannot be bent or broken, but that won’t stop the club from trying.
Early in the offseason, they’ve been the most active MLB team, signing Tyler Anderson and trading for Hunter Renfroe and Gio Urshela. These moves have all been generally applauded and address apparent weaknesses on their roster. Frankly, that is unacceptable because, as it was carved into the mountainside eons ago, Mike Trout cannot win a playoff game lest California falls into the sea. Fortunately, several scenarios will keep the club below .500 to avoid affronting nature itself.
The Injury Bug
Trout played 119 games and recorded 499 plate appearances in 2022, slashing .283/.369/.630. Despite missing more than 1/4 of the season, he still finished second in the AL in home runs (40) and sixth in bWAR (6.3). His .999 OPS and 178 OPS+ basically matched his career averages. Yet it was still the season in which he officially became “injury prone.”
In July, he was diagnosed with a back condition called T5 Costovertebral Dysfunction. According to spinal surgeon Dr. Kern Singh, “(His) condition is a rare injury that may persist throughout the remainder of his career… In layman’s terms, this means abnormal loading of the joint between the rib and the middle of the upper back (thoracic spine).
Now 31 years old and still a center fielder, his 499 plate appearances were the most he had in a season since 2019. He hasn’t surpassed 140 games since 2016. He’s not the only Angel with a troubling injury history either. Shohei Ohtani has been transcendent over the past two seasons, but from 2017-2020, injuries limited him to a part-time DH who occasionally pitched as a novelty act. Anthony Rendon has played just 105 games over the last two years.
Injuries can strike any club at any time, but the Angels are built with a stars-and-scrubs approach rather than a balanced roster. When those stars can’t take the field, it’s that much more disastrous.
Indefensible Defense
Urshela is undoubtedly an upgrade in the batting order. He compiled a .285/.338/.429 slash line in Minnesota last year and owns a 119 OPS+ since 2019. The problem is that he plays third base— the same position as Rendon— and DH is occupied by Ohtani. Moreover, he’s not a terribly good fielder. Baseball Savant credits him with -5 Outs Above Average in each of 2022, 2021, and 2019 at his primary position. Now, the Angels want him to shift over to shortstop.
Last season, Andrew Velasquez and David Fletcher primarily handled short, but neither proved to be an MLB-caliber hitter. The club clearly feels comfortable sacrificing defense for offense, especially since Renfroe doesn’t have a great defensive reputation in the outfield either. Trout and Rendon aren’t getting any younger, and Jared Walsh has never been particularly adept with his glove.
The club scored only 623 runs in 2022, 25th in MLB. Their lineup ought to be substantially more potent in 2023 with the additions of Urshela and Renfroe as well as hopefully better health from their established sluggers, but they’re going to need every ounce of offense to overcome their shoddy fielding.
Unsustainable Pitching
Somewhat surprisingly, starting pitching was a strength for the 2022 Angels. Ohtani posted his best season on the mound, leading the AL with 11.9 K/9 and finishing fourth in the AL Cy Young voting. Patrick Sandoval started 27 games with a 2.91 ERA. Reid Detmers and José Suarez both looked like mid-rotation anchors. Now they’ll add Anderson on a three-year deal after he made his first All-Star Team pitching for the Dodgers.
That’s a formidable five-man rotation on paper, but it’s not hard to envision that paper crumpling. Ohtani seems to keep getting better and should remain an ace this season. However, Anderson and Sandoval don’t have a long track record of success. The former had a 4.62 ERA over six seasons prior to his 2022 breakout. The latter still had an unsightly 1.34 WHIP last year and his sparkling ERA seems to have been a product of an unrepeatably lucky 6.3% HR/FB rate. Detmers and Suarez are still young and don’t have long track records of success.
If everything goes according to plan, the Angels should have a rotation that can compete with any in MLB. Things rarely go according to plan, though. Odds are good that a few of those starters will turn back into pumpkins.
O’Hoppe or O’Floppe?
The Brandon Marsh-for-Logan O’Hoppe trade made perfect sense for both the Angels and the Phillies. Both young players were recently listed on top-100 prospect lists but were blocked by the best player in the sport at their natural positions: Trout in center field and J.T. Realmuto at catcher.
O’Hoppe is currently ranked 61st overall on FanGraphs’ prospect list, making him the highest-ranked Halos prospect. He obliterated double-A pitching last year with a .283/.416/.544 slash line across both the Eastern and Southern Leagues. He earned a five-game cup of coffee in the majors, debuting on September 28.
Despite skipping Triple-A last year, he’s penciled in as the starting catcher for the Angels next year in his age-23 season. For context, neither Adley Rutschman, Will Smith, nor Sean Murphy debuted until their age-24 seasons. It has been a very aggressive promotion path for a catching prospect from a cold-weather area— he’s from Long Island originally— but the club has little choice. Max Stassi batted .180/.267/.303 in 2022, including a putrid .151/.214/.281 second half. Barring something unexpected, O’Hoppe will be the starter next season, ready or not.
Cursed Angels
Technically, the Los Angeles Angels haven’t finished above .500 since 1964. They changed their name to the California Angles in 1965 and experienced some periods of intermittent success over the next 32 years, then played as the Anaheim Angels for eight seasons including a championship in 2002. They achieved a winning record in nine of their 11 campaigns as the somewhat nonsensical Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim before dropping the “of Anaheim” in 2016. It’s worth noting that they’ve played in the same ballpark since 1966.
Anaheim, where they actually play ball, is part of Orange County, not Los Angeles County. Downtown LA is 29 miles northwest of Angels Stadium. Since they dropped their true residence from their name seven years ago, they haven’t finished better than 80-82. Their progress early in the 2022/2023 offseason is commendable and implies that they might contend for the playoffs before Trout’s window closes. Still, there are many ways it could all go to pot, which is always the story of the Los Angeles Angels (who don’t play anywhere near Los Angeles).
