4 harsh truths the Angels may have to face regarding their young core's future

The Angels' hopes for Kyren Paris may be extinguished just as quickly as they were reignited

Kyren Paris entered this year's spring training as an afterthought. The 23-year-old infielder had gotten sporadic playing time in the majors the previous two seasons in the wake of a plethora of injuries to the big league club and failed to impress in the limited samples.

The youngster once had a lot of promise as a second-round pick out of high school back in 2019, and the early returns on his minor league career were impressive. Twitchy and athletic, he seemed to have the skills to make an impact on the big league level both at the dish and in the field.

Then 2024 happened. Paris struggled for the second season in a row in his limited big league action, but those struggles were also present in the minors. Through 60 games split between Double-A and Triple-A, he hit an anemic .167/.254/.278 while striking out an eye-popping 35.1% of the time.

To his credit, he sought out help in the offseason, linking up with Richard Schenck, reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge's personal hitting coach. Schenck rebuilt Paris's stance, opening him up and changing his hand placement, having him look like something of a mini-Judge in the batter's box.

As spring training rolled around, Paris started raising some eyebrows. Not only was he setting up like Judge in the box, he was crushing baseballs too. First, his performance was dismissed for being a small sample, then for coming late in games against inferior competition, but no matter what, Paris kept launching baseballs all spring, forcing his way onto the big league roster as a result.

That insane production continued into the regular season, at least for a couple of weeks; however, just as quickly as he arose from the ashes, he came crashing back down to earth. On the season, Paris owns a .198/.270/.405 line and a league-worst 41.5% K-rate among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances.

The issues plaguing Paris are the same as those that have stunted Jo Adell, and might be even more egregious. Paris's whiff rate of 45.5% is first percentile bad, and he does himself no favors with a 30.7% chase rate that's good for the 30th percentile.

There's more than just a few minor adjustments that Paris needs to make, and frankly this might be more than just mechanics. The situation surrounding him might not be as dire as that of Adell given his lack of big league experience, but these plate discipline problems existed in his game prior to the stance change.

Maybe the pre-spring training outlook on Paris's future was the correct one. What is for certain, if he doesn't change the narrative fast he'll soon prove himself not to be the building block of the future everyone hoped he could be.