Angels Opening Day: 5 Key Storylines to watch in 2020

Angels Top Storylines: Mike Trout’s availability and the playoffs

While pitching has always been the Achilles heel for the Angels, there is no arguing how indispensable Mike Trout is and what he means to their playoff hopes on a yearly basis. That is especially true during a 60-game season, where every game counts.

That’s one reason why the Angels must have mixed feelings for Trout and the impending birth of his first child.

On one hand, the team is fully supportive of Trout and his wife Jessica as they welcome this blessing into their lives, especially amid such uncertainty in the world due to COVID-19. Obviously the team wants the baby, the mother, and Trout himself to remain healthy through this and will do everything they can to help as needed.

On the other hand, the child’s arrival is due on August 3rd, just 11 days into the 2020 season. While that comes on an off-day, Trout will undoubtedly utilize paternity leave to be with his family, as he should. That could range from one to three days, with the latter being the maximum allowed under MLB’s paternity leave policy.

But what if it is more?

As we all know, the coronavirus pandemic puts us all at risk, and that increases in high-risk places like hospitals. The Angels will ensure that he is tested daily so that he won’t have to quarantine for 24-48 hours before his return. However, what happens if Trout tests positive? He will then need to test negative for the virus twice 24-hours apart and show no symptoms for 72 hours before being allowed to rejoin the team.

Don’t get me wrong. Trout should certainly be with his family during this time. However, it does come with its risks and the Angels could see themselves without Trout for a minimum of two games and perhaps more depending on test results.

Can the team endure his absence for a few games? We’ll find out quickly.

Angels Top Storylines: Which rookies will debut in 2020?

As we already know, Jo Adell will not break camp with the Angels and will need to wait to make his MLB debut. He’ll see his shot at some point in 2020, but given service time concerns, the team is going to make him force their hand in order to gain another season of contractual control.

However, the game’s number third-ranked prospect is far from the only rookie that will look to get his first look at big-league life in 2020.

In particular, the Angels have a few arms on their 60-man roster that could be given a look in 2020 if the need arises.

2020 first-round pick Reid Detmers came to the Angels with as much polish as any college pitcher in recent memory. While he won’t light up a radar gone with high-90s heat, the word often attached to Detmers is “pitchability.”

The lefty from Louisville features some of the best control of any minor leaguer and can use any of his pitches to get strikeouts. Swings and misses were plentiful during his time with the Cardinals, where he averaged 13.4 K/9 over his 191 innings of work, including a 19.6 K/9 mark in 2020 before the season was shut down.

Like Detmers, fellow 2020 draftee Adam Seminaris is in summer camp and features a similar pedigree to the first-round pick. However, the former Long Beach State lefty doesn’t the same track record at Detmers, but he K’d 14.7 per nine innings over his 22 innings in 2020 and averaged 8.0 over his three-year career.

Both will have an uphill battle to reach the majors in 2020. However, both profile as quick movers through the system due to advanced secondary pitches. Promoting them this quickly would be odd given the shortened season, but they are both on the 60-man roster for a reason, and if the need arises, the Angels could turn to either as needed.

Angels Top Storylines: Can the pitching staff stay healthy in 2020?

As with any season, the Angels hopes will hinge on the ability of their pitching staff to take the ball every fifth day. Well, every sixth day under the Shohei Ohtani rules anyway.

The Halos staff has been heavily maligned over the past several seasons, to the point where the team added a ton of depth to their staff over the past winter. The general hope is that the team can get through the 60-game slate without a pitching injury. If it can do that and remain relatively productive, they stand a good chance of competing in 2020.

That is a big if.

The Angels will start the year off without offseason addition Julio Teheran, who missed all of summer camp after a COVID-19 diagnosis and likewise won’t have him available until the second or third week of the season. However, they came out of the long delay otherwise unscathed. The delay may even have benefited the team a bit.

Ohtani, who has been unable to pitch over the last year-plus after Tommy John surgery in September 2018, was originally slated to miss the first few months of the season. However, the delay allowed him to be fully ready to go and he’s slated to start the season’s third game in Oakland.

The other question mark during spring training was Griffin Canning. He experienced elbow issues at the end of 2019 and had a setback during the team’s first camp in February. After a PRP injection and restarting his throwing program from scratch, Canning is also fully healthy and part of the Angels rotation to start 2020. He looked impressive in his last preseason test, throwing six innings of three-hit ball and tallying five strikeouts and two walks against the Padres on July 20th.

If those two can stay healthy, and the additions of Dylan Bundy and Teheran prove fruitful, the Angels could be tough to contend with.

Angels Top Storylines: Will Shohei Ohtani continue to shine as a two-way star?

As previously mentioned above, Shohei Ohtani makes his long-awaited return to the mound on Sunday, giving Angels fans their first glimpse of the two-way start pitching since his rookie season ended abruptly.

Will the Angels see the same pitcher that put up a 3.31 ERA, a 3.57 FIP, and an 11.0 K/9 in 51 innings in 2018, or will Ohtani be something different? Better yet, will the two-way push be worth the risk?

By having Ohtani pitch, the Angels are committing to using him just once a week on the mound, meaning the team needs to carry a six-man rotation. Likewise, they are also committed to giving him off days both before and after his starts, meaning he won’t be in the line-up those days. Some of those absences will coincide with team travel days, but there will be others where he simply won’t be available.

While the upside of Ohtani in the rotation is huge for an Angels team in need of pitching, he is also a significant contributor to the lineup. After putting up 22 home runs and a 159 wRC+ as a rookie, Ohtani returned to the lineup in 2019 with 18 home runs and a 123 wRC+. That’s a huge bat to lose from the line-up twice a week. It will be especially evident when Trout misses time or on the chance that Albert Pujols or Justin Upton are unable to rebound.

If the 2020 campaign is merely an exhibition, at least it will provide a fair analysis of whether Ohtani’s two-way status is sustainable over the long haul. A six-man rotation is a good problem to have, but can a team maintain it when they’ve struggled consistently to keep five starters healthy?

Angels Top Storylines: Will the expanded MLB postseason help?

Major League Baseball threw the Los Angeles Angels a hail mary on Thursday. Now the only thing the team needs to do is catch the ball.

Yes, that was a football analogy on a baseball article.

On Thursday, the league and MLBPA came to an agreement on expanding the postseason for the 2020 season. Instead of there being five teams from each league, there will now be eight. Opening up three additional playoff spots in each league is a huge change and can be advantageous for the Angels.

But there’s a catch.

Instead of all those extra playoff spots being Wild Cards, awarded to the team’s with the best records outside of division winners, the league went with a different format. Each of the divisional winners will receive a playoff ticket, as will each of the runner-ups in each division. The final two spots will be decided by a Wild Card standing, just as it normally is.

That adds an additional level of intrigue for the Angels, as well as the rest of the bubble teams in the league. Now, instead of playing for first place or a top record, they have to aim for second place or higher.

According to FanGraphs and ZiPS projections, the Angels have a 25.3% chance of finishing second in the American League West and a 20.5% chance of winning the Wild Card. The service gives them an aggregate chance of making the postseason of 57.4%. That is currently the ninth-highest among AL teams.

It’s an outside chance, but the Angels could see the postseason in 2020. If not, at least they should be in the picture throughout the entire 60-game sprint.