LA Angels: 5 Questions the team must answer when play resumes

The Los Angeles Angels overhauled their team heading into the season, but there are still several questions the team must answer if it wants to make a playoff push in 2020.

By all measurements, the 2019 season was a disappointment for the Los Angeles Angels, who finished 72-90 on the season and a distant fourth place behind the division-champion Houston Astros. It was the team’s fifth straight year without a playoff appearance and second consecutive season fourth-place finish.

Needless to say, the team had aspirations for improvement heading into the 2020 season. The Angels overhauled the roster by adding depth to their beleaguered pitching staff, added another premier bat in Anthony Rendon in the heart of the line-up, and they were looking forward to the return of Shohei Ohtani to the mound. All was going to be right in Halo Heaven.

And then the coronavirus pandemic shut it all down.

It has now been nearly two months since Major League Baseball made the difficult decision to put the game on hold in the wake of the biggest health crisis in decades. No practices, no games, and no transactions, only a soft hint of crickets chirping in the distance.

However, there seems to be some hope of the season being resumed in late June or early July in some shape or form. Whether it is through realignment, playing in a bubble city, or in each team’s home stadiums without fans, there will be baseball in 2020. That should put the Angels back on the road to righting the ship, right?

To get back on top, the Angels will need to look into themselves a bit and answer some important questions that will go a long way toward knowing exactly what kind of team they bring to the table this season.

What is the Angels’ plan for Shohei Ohtani in 2020?

After Shohei Ohtani underwent successful Tommy John surgery in October 2018, the Los Angeles Angels were not sure what they would see from two-way star in 2019. What they got was a welcome surprise, even in a down year for the team.

Ohtani was unable to throw at all in 2019, but he was able to return to the line-up as a hitter last season. He made his season debut on May 7 and gave the Angels 106 games as the team’s primary DH. Even in that limited capacity, he accounted for a 1.8 fWAR across 425 plate appearances. While his ISO (.219 in 2019 vs .279 in 2018) and wRC+ (123 vs 151) took a bit of a hit last season, Ohtani’s results were encouraging considering his layoff while recovering.

From a pure hitting standpoint, one would expect that an uninterrupted winter of full-strength workouts and repetitions will help get him back to the hitter he was two seasons ago, or better. The real question is when he can return to the mound and how the team will deploy him just one year removed from Tommy John surgery.

The shutdown for the pandemic may have aided in his recovery a bit, but even under those conditions he was still only throwing at 80-85 percent as of late April. That would likely mean that Ohtani is still a few months away from being able to take the mound. Even when he is able to take a turn in the rotation, Ohtani is likely to face an innings limit or may even be part of a six-man rotation to help ensure the team can manage his workload.

The amount the Angels opt to limit Ohtani remains to be seen. There seems to be quite a bit of variance in his deployment via estimator services like ZiPS and Steamer, with the former thinking he will take 12 turns in the rotation and the latter assuming the Angels will be less conservative and allow him to make 18 appearances on the mound.

Regardless of which you subscribe to, the results are projecting for a favorable outcome for the Angels. ZiPS projects that Ohtani will go 5-4 with a 3.89 ERA, a 3.85 FIP, and a 10.77 K/9 over 69.3 innings of work (5.2 innings per start). Meanwhile, Steamer is estimating a 3.70 ERA, a 3.77 FIP, and a 11.15 K/9 over 101 innings.

Those seem to be fairly aggressive numbers for a player who hasn’t thrown a live pitch in since Sept. 2, 2018. However, the Angels will take anything he can give them as a step in the right direction, whether that be this season or next.

Does Albert Pujols have anything left in the tank for the Los Angeles Angels in 2020?

When the Los Angeles Angels signed Albert Pujols to a 10-year, $254 million deal on Dec. 8, 2011, they understood that deal would likely take the future Hall of Famer through the end of his career. They also knew that the biggest value years in the deal would at the front-end of the contract and that the last few years may not live up to the dollars spent.

Maybe the Angels should have been a little more cautious, as they were investing in Pujols coming off of his worst season in his already 11-year Cardinals tenure. What they got over the course of the first eight seasons of the pact was a cumulative fWAR of just 6.1. Sure the Angels got the major milestones of 3000 hits and both 500 and 600 home runs, but that seems to have come at a heavy cost.

With two years and $59 million left on the deal, not to mention a 10-year, $10 million personal services contract that kicks in when the playing contract ends, the Angels are paying a steep price for a player that is well below replacement value. Pujols has failed to put up a positive fWAR and has been sub-average in wRC+ since 2016.

Entering his age-40 season, it is unlikely to see him rebound and become even a semblance of the player he once was. Pujols has seen both his soft contact rates rise each the last two seasons, hitting a peak of 19.5 percent in 2019, which would have tied him for the 19th highest mark among qualified hitters last season, putting him in range of such luminaries as Jose Iglesias of the Reds and Kevin Pillar of the San Francisco Giants.

At this stage, the Angels are banking on him to hit 20+ home runs and drive in 85 to 100 runs while hitting in the range of .245. That’s part of the reason they went out and spent a lot of money on adding Anthony Rendon to the middle of the order.

It’s not the Albert Pujols they thought they were buying into, but it’s the one they should have known was coming.

Should the Angels expect Tommy La Stella to revert to form in 2020?

The Los Angeles Angels found themselves quite the bargain last season when they picked up Tommy La Stella in a winter trade with the Chicago Cubs. For the meager price of Connor Lillis-White, the Angels added a versatile utility man who could provide solid bench depth for the club.

At least, that was what they thought they were getting.

La Stella ended up being a major surprise for the team in 2019, putting up a career-best 2.0 fWAR on the back of a .295/.346/.486 slash line, 16 home runs, and 44 RBI. FanGraphs valued his production at $16.2 million based on his fWAR. Given he earned just $1.35 million last season, the Angels received quite a bit of bang for their buck.

With that kind of jump in production at the tender age of 30, skeptics are bound to line up and question how much of it can be sustained. After all, we’re talking about a player that had never put together more than five home runs or 31 RBI  in a season and had only once before registered a wRC+ greater than the 122 he managed last season (126 in 2017, but half the at-bats). In other words, there was no writing on the wall to predict this outbreak.

There is certainly something to be said about La Stella capitalizing on an opportunity here, taking advantage of the absolute failure of Zack Cozart and seeing his most plate appearances since his rookie season in 2014. However, it wouldn’t be prudent for the Angels to assume that they will get nearly that level of production out of La Stella again in 2020.

The good news is that the team doesn’t need to bank on a repeat for La Stella either. The addition of Anthony Rendon and the presence of David Fletcher and Andrelton Simmons pushes the La Stella back to a utility role, where he can spell players around the infield. His salary rose to $3.25 million in 2020, but he’s likely to still see enough at-bats this season to still have value in that deal, even if he isn’t producing at herculean levels.

Does Mike Trout have another level to push the Angels further in 2020?

It’s hard to ask much more of Mike Trout that the man has already committed to the Los Angeles Angels over the course of his first nine seasons. After all, we’re talking about a man who has is already authoring one of the best decades of all-time. That includes three American League Most Valuable Player awards, three runner-up finishes, a Rookie of the Year trophy, and eight consecutive All-Star appearances.

In other words, Mike Trout is the best player the league has seen in some time, and with 10 years still on his deal, the Angels fully intend to enjoy his ascension for the foreseeable future. Most players see 73.4 fWAR as a career and he’s already 5th all-time in terms of JAWS rating, putting him above the average cut-off line for Hall of Fame induction for center fielders.

But how much more can Trout dial it up?

Trout has already done his heavy lifting heading into his age-28 season. He’s only authored one season below 8.0 in fWAR and that came in an injury-shortened season in 2017 and his wRC+ of 180 last season was the second-highest of his career.

Most players don’t even hit their primes until age 27, but there may still be some growth left on the horizon. Keep in mind that the damage that Trout did the last three seasons came with an aging Albert Pujols behind him in the order. Now with Anthony Rendon entering that coveted slot of the order, Trout will likely see more to hit in 2020 and beyond. Barring injury, that bodes well for his quest to write his name in the record books and eventually to Cooperstown.

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That’s a scary proposition for the rest of Major League Baseball, but it remains an exciting outlook for the Los Angeles Angels and their fans. If the team can find answers to the questions in the rotation, they may still yet take advantage of the best years in Mike Trout’s career.