The Angels in 2020: What Went Wrong?
By Jay Sheehy
Of course the parking lot is empty- nobody wants to watch the Angels this year (Oh, it’s because COVID-19?)
It wasn’t meant to be this way, not this year. The 2020 season was supposed to be the year Mike Trout made it back to the postseason. The team signed Anthony Rendon to a mega-deal. Joe Maddon was brought in to captain the ship. The pitching staff was…improved? Okay, so there were question marks to be sure but no one thought it was going to turn into THIS. What happened?
Nothing went right (basically).
First off, the season started on July 24, instead of March 31. Thank you, COVID-19. 162 games became 60, playoffs expanded, and on and on it goes. Yet, all of that should have actually helped the Angels. More playoff teams? Perfect. Less innings to go around? Fantastic. Playing the Dodgers more than anyone else in the division? Okay, it didn’t all break the Angels way.
The team (and their fans) felt confident they would snag one of the EIGHT American League playoff spots. Almost immediately, however, the 2020 season began to look a lot like the last half decade in Anaheim.
Game #1: Bullpen mismanagement.
Joe Maddon can be cut a little bit of slack due to the unprecedented situation regarding the season opener and how that forced a lot of different teams to try a lot of different things. Under the circumstances, pulling Andrew Heaney after 4.2 incredibly effective innings STILL is a bad idea. He’d just struck out Mark Canha. He’d only thrown 67 pitches. He looked good. A revolving door of seven pitchers over the remaining 4.2 innings resulted in Hansel Robles (we’ll get back to him) loading up the bases so Hoby Milner could groove his first pitch into Matt Olson…who did the rest. Walk. Off. Grand. Slam. Hoby Milner threw one pitch.
Of course, there weren’t many options left because Joe Maddon had, once again, used seven pitchers over the previous 4.2 innings (Bullpen mismanagement still seems true 37 games later. Maddon doesn’t trust starters to get outs after the fifth inning).
It was just one game, though. The next day, Dylan Bundy pitched well, Buttrey and Robles bounced back from their previous day and the Angels won the game. Bundy looked like a different pitcher than the one stuck in Baltimore purgatory the previous three seasons. Sunday was Ohtani day for the season, and game three was his first start.
To say it went poorly would be an understatement of mythical proportions. Ohtani threw 30 pitches, only 15 for strikes. He walked three. He gave up three hits. He didn’t record an out. His fastball was low 90s. Things did not look good. And of course, the Angels lost the game (Silver Lining: Matt Andriese looked incredible over 5.2 innings…he would not keep that up).
Then, they go 1-2 against an over-achieving Seattle team. Over-achieving because they shouldn’t have won a series against anybody all season long. Fast forward to Ohtani’s second start. He strikes out George Springer with his splitter. He officially has an ERA. Then, Jose Altuve fouls out to the catcher- another splitter. This looks like a healthy Ohtani. Alex Bregman lines out on the first pitch and just like that it’s a 1-2-3 inning for Shohei Ohtani. Angels fans begin to breathe a little easier. Said breathing will be short lived. Ohtani walks the bases loaded before he records an out. To be fair, multiple two strike pitches could have been strike three. Bad umping can certainly push a pitcher teetering on the edge all the way over. Ohtani responded with back-to-back strikeouts…then two more walks, scoring two. That was the end of his day on the mound…and later on it was determined, the end of his season.
The Angels were 3-7 at that point. Anthony Rendon had only played six games due to an oblique injury and he had yet to get going. Mike Trout missed four games to be with his wife as she gave birth to the couple’s first child. He returned with vigor, yet it didn’t change much.
First 10 games: 3-7
Second 10 games: 4-6 (7-13)
Third 10 games: 2-8 (9-21)
Last 8: 4-4 (13-25)
Their first two game winning streak wasn’t until their 17th and 18th games. Their only three game winning streak was during games 32-34; it’s their longest winning streak of the season. Even in the new world of eight playoff teams per league, the Angels are 8 games out of the last playoff spot with five teams between them and the eighth place Toronto Blue Jays.
So what went wrong exactly?
Pitching, of course.
- 25th in Team ERA at 5.03
- 28th in Inherited Score % at 38%
- 9 blown saves in 38 games
Shohei Ohtani, Julio Teheran, Patrick Sandoval, Matt Andriese, Keynan Middleton, Jacob Barnes, Hansel Robles, Jose Suarez.
Other than Suarez, these are pitchers who were counted on to do heavy lifting in 2020. In 103.2 combined innings their ERA is 8.59…the remainder of the staff has a 3.42 ERA over 229 innings. Only Middleton has an ERA under 6 from this group. Teheran looks terrible. Robles has an ERA over 13!
Oh, hitting is a problem too.
While the Angels have a league average offense on paper, that is no longer the case as both Tommy La Stella (131 OPS+) and Brian Goodwin (115 OPS+) helped them achieve that moderate success but have now been traded away. Jo Adell, known for slow starts is doing just that with an OPS+ of 35! Trout and Rendon are hitting like Trout and Rendon (though Trout’s walk% is down a bit), and David Fletcher was doing well before injury, but the remainder of the roster is either under-achieving (Ohtani, Upton, Rengifo) or just plain bad (Pujols).
Has anything went right?
Sure, Trout is Trout, Rendon is Rendon. Pretty good start, isn’t it? Dylan Bundy has been amazing, Griffin Canning and Andrew Heaney both look like they might make that next step (it goes back and forth with these two), Felix Pena has been excellent, David Fletcher is a better version of Angels fan favorite David Eckstein, Max Stassi looked good before injury…that might be it.
The playoffs in 2020 are no longer a possibility for the Los Angeles Angels. That doesn’t mean the rest of the season is pointless for them, however, as young players should get some useful experience, specifically Jo Adell, Luis Rengifo, Griffin Canning and possibly Brandon Marsh (maybe even first round pick, Reid Detmers). Also, Albert Pujols is that much closer to coming off the books. That counts for something, doesn’t it?