LA Angels: Halos offensive numbers are deceiving

It’s been well documented on our site, the Angels currently have one of the top offenses in Major League Baseball and their numbers prove it. However, when you look deeper into the traditional statistics and advanced metrics, there are a handful of players who have done the heavy lifting through 12 games this season.

As a team, here’s how the Halos rank offensively with the rest of MLB in the following categories:

• Runs: (61-8th)
• Hits: (108-6th)
• Home Runs: (15-11th)
• OPS: (.742-6th)

Now let’s take a look at the players who are mainly responsible for those numbers. The trio of Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Jared Walsh have combined for 59 percent of runs scored (36), 73 percent of home runs (11), and they’re the only three Angels with an OPS above .700.

Brent Maguire of Crashing the Pearly Gates brought up a great advanced metric to summarize this point. It involves using weighted runs created plus (wRC+), which takes the statistic runs created and adjusts that number for external factors like ballpark or ERA. The league average for wRC+ is 100.

Trout (241 wRC+), Ohtani (206 wRC+), and Walsh (195 wRC+) all rank in MLB’s top-20 for this category. The other two Angels with a wRC+ above league average (100) are Max Stassi (195) and Anthony Rendon (194).

The remaining 11 Halos with plate appearances this season are all well below MLB average.

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It’s not looking good for the Halos if these trends continue, especially considering all the injuries that have piled up in the past week. Among those on the 10-Day IL are two players who have been productive, Stassi and Rendon.

The role players on the Angels need to step up, plain and simple. Sure Trout, Ohtani, and Walsh can continue carrying the offense, but it’s asking a lot for each player to do it for the entirety of a 162-game season. As we’ve seen in the past two losses, players are bound to have bad days regardless of how talented they are.

Players like Justin Upton, Jose Iglesias, David Fletcher, and whoever is plugged into right field in Dexter Fowler’s absence aren’t expected to put up the superstar numbers like the team leaders are. However, the games where Anaheim’s big stars have bad days is when the rest of the team needs to come through and lessen the burden.

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The good news for the Angels is the potential of this team if they get consistent production 1-9 in their lineup.

If they already rank top-10 in offensive categories with three players doing the heavy lifting, there’s unlimited potential if the role players step up.