Prospects Will Break Y... (10/03)
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October 3, 2012 Pebble HuntingA Very Good Team and a Very Bad Season
The day that the Angels introduced Vernon Wells, Arte Moreno told reporters the score:
The day that the Angels introduced Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson, or the day they introduced Zack Greinke, or the day they called up Mike Trout, or the day they signed Eric Hurley to a minor-league contract, or the day they didn’t do anything except file their expense accounts and clean out their inboxes, they could have said the same. Winning, of course, is the ultimate judgment. It’s the end of the story. It’s not the whole story, though, and figuring out just what, why, and how about the Angels’ season—or, more specifically, about the decisions that went into the Angels’ season—is a lot more complicated than Moreno's construction. There are two ways of looking at the Angels' season. They are just four games behind the best team in the American League. They are going to finish with 90 or 91 wins; our preseason PECOTAs projected them for 90. Going back over the past 12 years, 60 percent of teams that won 87 to 90 games made the playoffs. The Angels were a very good team and, but for the other teams that played better (duh), they could have made the playoffs. But they won’t. That’s the other way to look at the Angels' season. They won’t. They took a team that won 86 games last year and signed the best free agent hitter available, and the best free agent pitcher available, and lost nobody of value, and they won’t make the playoffs. They added the best rookie in history, a player who is having the greatest season in franchise history, and they won’t make the playoffs. They added a dominant closer, and they won’t make the playoffs. They traded for the best pitcher available at midseason, and they won’t make the playoffs. And they removed Jeff Mathis, and they won’t make the playoffs. It’s the craziest thing. So did somebody make a mistake with these Angels? As regards the offense...
Simply counting plusses and minuses, that’s an even split. But, of course, teams have some agency over whom they play, and by putting the better players into the weaker positions, they have actually had six of nine positions outperform the preseason projection, and only two underperform. Weighting these by playing time, the Angels' core dozen have been 16 points of TAv better than we expected, on a PA-by-PA basis. Of their best starting nine, eight stayed healthy enough to get at least 500 plate appearances. An offense that was league average last year is, this year, probably the best in the American League. They lead the league in road OBP, and in road slugging, and in road scoring. They lead the league in TAv. Just one of those measures might not give me total confidence, but put them together, and I’m convinced. So, add to that list above that the Angels got more offense than they expected and still won’t make the playoffs. As regards the defense... As regards the starting pitching... If Dan Haren had had the ERA we projected for him this year, rather than the one he had, he would have allowed 24 fewer runs. If Ervin Santana had had the ERA we projected for him this year, rather than the one he had, he would have allowed 24 fewer runs. Those 48 runs are the difference between the best record in baseball and not making the postseason. (C.J. Wilson has allowed about 15 more runs than we expected; Weaver hasn’t, but he has pitched 30 fewer innings. In fact, the top four in the rotation have pitched about 100 fewer innings than PECOTA projected.) As regards the bullpen... Scioscia’s usage patterns throughout the year, courtesy of Dan Brooks' spectacular new bullpen graphs:
But what about the front office? Did they fail? Knowing what we know now, should the Angels front office have … Done something about the offense? No. The offense looked like it would be good, and it was very good. Better hitters would have done better, of course, but realistically the offense was more than adequate. Done something about the defense? No. The defense looked like it would be good, and it was very good. Done something about the rotation? Probably not. We know now that Haren and Santana failed, but they were no worse bets than any other options the Angels would have been likely to get. More depth would have been helpful, I suppose, but a) how many teams go six or seven deep and b) it’s unlikely that any “depth” that could be stashed at Triple-A would have had the pull to replace Santana, who was the problem. Done something about the bullpen? Ehhhh. The Angels brought back every non-Rodney part of a bullpen that had the league’s second-best ERA in 2011. They added Hawkins, and they added Frieri. The performance of the bullpen wasn’t a failure to plan; it was simply another example of the fact that bullpen performance is almost totally unpredictable, even at a team level. (The best bullpen in the league, for what it's worth, is anchored by Fernando Rodney. If your solution for a team is "fix the blowpen" or "fix the bLOLpen," you are, respectfully, saying nothing.) (This last point is, if you’ll allow me, actually great news for the Angels. Losing behind a bad bullpen is painful to watch, but it’s the easiest thing to fix. Just close your eyes, spin around a few times, and it’s fixed! More or less, at least.) Maybe they should have brought up Mike Trout three weeks earlier, but more realistically Mike Trout was a) not thought to be physically ready, having barely played in spring training because of illness and b) not a player anybody was projecting to be worth two wins a month. More likely, the Angels could have reasonably expected him to be a few runs better than Wells or Bourjos over three weeks. More likely, the Angels were just trying to figure out a roster crunch that saw Bourjos get benched (totally unexpected), Trumbo moved to the outfield (almost totally unexpected), Abreu waived (not expected), and Wells benched (kind of expected). Sending Trout down for three weeks helped the Angels answer those questions. ***
It’s a dumb tweet, really. Obviously the offseason matters, so what’s the point of making a prediction? Actually, what’s ever the point of making a prediction? But the point was this: even on the night the Angels were (effectively) eliminated, it was easy to see a team that was very well put together, and that might actually be the best team in the American League. Or they might be terrible. Stupid baseball.
Sam Miller is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @SamMillerBB
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Of course I'm disappointed but I'm likely in the minority of fans and am not griping (too much). In comparison with the other 50 seasons, this season was one of our best (it wasn't "a very bad season" as the headline implies).
It's debatable which season was more enjoayle for instance, this one, or 2004 when they went 0-3 and out in the first round with an AL West flag.
Mike Trout made this season. And we were alive into October.
I'm worried about next season though, if as the rumors are true and we do in fact sign Greinke and let Haren/Sanatana go. Does that mean our 4/5 is Richards/Williams? That doesn't look as promising as the current rotation.
On a final note, what was most disappointing to me is that, while we all know Pujols had a solid season after April and put up good numbers, but I can't recall a clutch moment when he won a game by himself. And while the team excelled in the last month, Albert couldn't get us over the A's/O's the past month, and those two team's September's themselves caused the biggest heartburn.
Anyways, I can't wait for them to show back up in February in Tempe.