LA Angels Series Preview: Plundering the Pirates

Improving for the future in the now

The Angels are in a position where they can strengthen their 2020 club by continuing on the path that they’re currently on. Some of the improvements they can make for 2020 in the now is by finding a way to scrape up enough pitching depth to send Jose Suarez back to the Minors. Suarez has a world of potential left to unlock, but if he continues to falter in the MLB he may not be able to live up to this potential. He gets rocked by opposing hitters on an extreme level.

Overall he’s letting hitters slug a clean .559 off of him while right-handed hitters are crushing him for a .636 slugging overall. Eleven of the 14 HR’s he’s allowed on the season have come from right-handers, though against left handers he’s finding much more success as he’d held them to a .175/.258/.386 slash line.

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Right now there are far too many discrepancies in Suarez’s game that keep him exposed to MLB hitting. As I said before, Suarez needs to learn how to attack with far more aggression than he currently is, especially with hitters in 2 strike counts. Suarez spends too much time working around the zone instead of forcing hitters to make contact with his stuff.

Suarez has MLB capable stuff, but he way he is applying it is offering him no help; he’s not aggressive enough to force swing and misses deep in counts and he isn’t mixing his stuff up well enough to generate weak contact.

The only way he can develop the stuff he needs to succeed in the Majors is by spending time working it all out in the MiLB, but again, unless the Angels scrape together more quality depth we might be forced to work him at the MLB level for the rest of the season.

Griffin Canning, on the other hand, has had much more success, though his struggles come with maintaining his success. Griffin Canning, aside from his 6 IP 7 K outing his last time up, has had trouble keeping it hot as the game goes on.

Generally, we’ve seen Canning start most games out hot before hitting a wall; in his first inning of work, across 15 IP, Canning is holding down a 1.80 ERA. When the third inning comes along, however, Canning is letting hitters attack him for a 5.14 ERA. All Canning needs to do is find a way to keep his game hot through the middle innings, if he can do that there is no doubt he will anchor the middle of the Angels rotation come 2020.