LA Angels: Why Jose Iglesias is about to have a great first-half finish

Jose Iglesias has been a one-dimensional baseball player this year for the LA Angels.

Iglesias has been solid offensively this year, but has played poorly defensively. He has the worst fielding percentage (.942) out of shortstops who have played nine or more games this year, and has made 11 errors already. Offensively, however, he’s batting .280, which is second on the team behind only Jared Walsh. (All stats are as of before June 15th’s game.)

Whenever I see Iglesias get on a bit of a tear, my eyes immediately light up. This is because savvy baseball fans remember how effective Jose Iglesias can be when he’s at his best.

When Jose Iglesias is at his best, he’s an All-Star, just like he was in 2015.

That year, Jose Iglesias batted .300 and had a much better showing defensively for the Detroit Tigers. He had a .977 fielding percentage.

As was mentioned earlier, Iglesias has committed 11 errors on the year. In 2015, Iglesias made 11 errors all year.

He’s capable of more than what he’s been, and in his last six games, he’s begun to show that.

He’s hitting .370/.393/.593, amounting to an OPS of .985 in those games. Those are absolutely beautiful numbers. He’s knocked in a few runs in that span, and scored five himself.

He didn’t make any errors in those six contests, and hasn’t made one since June 5th.

The thing is, Iglesias still has 96 games left to make up for his disappointments on D this year. I’m confident he’ll continue to perform well on defense, and get back over to where he was in 2015.

The lowest fielding percentage he’s ever recorded in a season as a shortstop was the .977 he put up in 2015. Just making it back to fielding at around that level would be a huge win for Iglesias and the Angels, because he’s already sporting a nice .280 batting average.

.280 isn’t great, but if he continues to hit the way he has been, he’ll be able to get closer to 2015 form offensively too.

Iglesias just has to continue to ride this momentum, as he has been, and he can enter the top third of American League shortstops. I absolutely think he can do it.

That shouldn’t even be controversial; he’s done it before. He’s a talented player, and he’s been looking a lot more like himself these days.