LA Angels Series Preview: Plundering the Pirates

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BOSTON, MA – AUGUST 11: Mike Trout #27 celebrates with teammate Wilfredo Tovar #19 of the Los Angeles Angels after beating the Boston Red Sox in the tenth inning at Fenway Park on August 11, 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Kathryn Riley/Getty Images) /

The LA Angels are coming back home from a road trip that saw them take two out of four games from the Red Sox in Fenway and will look to build on that successful series with another strong performance against the visiting Pirates.

The LA Angels haven’t had much help from their pitching core, but the offense has done enough to bring them back home with some wind underneath their wings.

The Angels are back home to face the Pittsburgh Pirates for a three game series that will feature the Angels youth pitching back at it and looking to solidify themselves as legitimate pieces for the 2020 Angels roster. Jose Suarez is struggling to find his groove in the Majors as he currently is rocking a 6.22 ERA in ten starts this season while allowing 14 HRs in his 46.1 IP.

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At this point it’s obvious that Suarez needs time in the Minors to further develop his craft as there are currently far too many exploitable holes in his game. Suarez cannot finish off hitters in 2 strike counts, he is extremely HR prone, and his pitch efficiency is far away from what is needed to have success in the MLB. It’s been a tough go for Suarez in 2019, but don’t let this season speak to his actual talent level.

Jose Suarez has the potential to be a solid back-end starter once he finds his groove, but right now it doesn’t seem like he’ll be easing into a groove any time soon. The only real reason he’s up in the MLB right now is because the Angels are starved for depth and because of that Jose Suarez has to suffer.

It isn’t all bad on the rookie front this coming series; Griffin Canning will likely make his return Tuesday after a short recovery from elbow inflammation and Dillon Peters will be looking to make another quality outing for the Angels. Both pitchers have shown promise in their time with the Angels this season and will continue to build on their promising 2019 campaigns against the Pirates

There is a bright future ahead for the Angels, even through all of 2019’s struggles, and we’ll get a nice little sneak peek at that future when the youth takes the mound in each game this series.

Pirates @ Angels

(8/12) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Jose Suarez (2-3. 6.22 ERA) vs Mitch Keller (0-1, 10.50 ERA)

(8/13) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Griffin Canning (4-6, 4.76 ERA) vs Trevor Williams (4-5, 5.06 ERA)

(8/14) 5:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Dillon Peters (2-1, 3.45 ERA) vs Chris Archer (3-8, 5.23 ERA)

LA Angels Jose Suarez looking good in his third start of his career in the MLB /

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.

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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.

It’s the little things that count

The Angels GM Billy Eppler, despite starting pitching woes, is celebrated for his skill at working the under-the-radar trade. 2018 saw Eppler fleece both the Astros and Red Sox by sending two-months of Martin Maldonado for pitching prospect Patrick Sandoval, who has now made two starts with the big league Angels.

After that move we saw Eppler work the Red Soc over by sending the (then) 36-year-old Ian Kinsler for two top Red Sox prospects, Williams Jerez and Ty Buttrey. Jerez is no longer with the Angels, but Ty Buttrey has pitched his way into a leading role in the Angels bullpen.

Buttrey may have had some late season struggles, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is the most talented pitcher in the Angels bullpen. We’ve seen Eppler flip veteran players for youth prospects and his trades have generally been major upgrades for the Angels.

Another such trade Eppler made was for the 26-year-old starting pitcher Dillon Peters from the Miami Marlins. Dillon Peters has been a surprise to many Angel fans as he currently has pitched 31.1 innings of 3.45 ERA baseball. Peters was brought on board as starting depth and is currently living up to his role at the highest degree.

Los Angeles Angels

No other Angels depth starter has provided as many quality innings, both in the bullpen and in the starting rotation, as Dillon Peters. Peters has not allowed more than 3 runs in any appearance of his, in fact his “worst” outing came in his start against Baltimore in which he allowed 2 runs across 4 IP off of 72 pitches thrown. In that outing he walked 2 while striking out just two as the Angels worked their way to an eventual 7-8 loss.

The only thing that makes this trade a bit more difficult to swallow than it should be was the quality the Angels gave up in return for Peters. The Angels sent over prospective pitcher, and future bullpen piece (probably closer) Tyler Stevens.

Stevens threw 71.1 innings across High A, Double A, and Triple A for the Angels in 2018 and ended the year with 5.43 ERA before being traded for Peters. Stevens was hit around in 28 Triple A IP for an overall 10.93 ERA, though he did maintain his 11.9 K/9 rate with Triple A.

However, that year in High A Stevens threw 23.2 innings of 2.28 ERA while spending 19.2 innings in Double A while holding down a 1.37 ERA with a 13.7 K/9.

Tyler Stevens, a power pitcher with a crushingly imposing mound presence and an absolute tank for a body, is currently pitching with the Marlins Triple A squad with 9 innings of 2.00 ERA baseball uner his belt.

The Angels traded someone who could help their ballclub in the future for someone who can help now in Dillon Peters, and it should be noted that Peters has been better than expected for the Angels this season.

Should Peters continue to provide quality outings in the back-end of the rotation or as long relief this trade will be a big win for the Angels, especially if Peters spends 2020 fulfilling the same role with the same quality he’s providing now.

Mike “MVP” Trout

At the very least, if we can’t watch this team win consistently, we’ll get to watch Mike Trout secure his 3rd career MVP at the age of 28. On the season Trout is hitting .297/.439/.668 with 39 HRs and 91 RBIs in 501 PAs.

What’s crazy about those numbers is that they should be much better than they actually are, Trout has suffered through a handful of terribly cold slumps that have kept his numbers from being truly astronomical even for Mike Trout himself.

Early in the year, we saw Trout kill the Texas Rangers during a homestand before hitting a cold slump that saw him hitting just .221/.372/.382 in 19 games with just 2 HRs and 9 RBIs. Last month, in July, we saw Trout have his best month (power wise) that could have been much more had he not slumped with a .228 AVG from July 13th to the 31st. Over all through July Trout hit .286/.392/.821 in 102 PA’s.

Though the month of August has just kicked off Trout is looking to post his best month of the entire year as he currently has a .323/.447/.806 slash line with 4 HRs and 6 RBIs in the month of August through just 38 PA’s. We’ve seen Trout hit cold slumps out of nowhere after going nuclear for a stretch of time, so it wouldn’t be the biggest surprise if Trout slipped into a slump overnight.

Regardless of any conjecture it looks like Trout is doing his thing, as usual, and getting better and better as time goes on. Prior to the month of July Trout hadn’t slugged over .700 at any point this season, his highest SLG% being .641 in June.

If Trout can put up two months of .800+ slugging it would be even more undeniable than it already is that he is a lock for MVP, even if he goes back to slugging in the high 600’s he’s still as tight a lock as they come for MVPs.

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This is exciting not only for this year, but for many years of Trout to come. One can only imagine how electric he’ll be through his 2018 campaign as he is just barely hitting his prime. It’s hard to imagine Trout getting much better than he already is, but at the same time that’s been a recurring theme for Trout throughout his career.

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