4 LA Angels who are playing their way out of the team's 2024 plans

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The Los Angeles Angels are a team all in on 2023. They made that abundantly clear by not trading Shohei Ohtani who is set to hit free agency when the season wraps up. They doubled down on that by trading some of their best prospects in exchange for rentals. The 2024 team could look completely different.

Some pieces of the 2024 roster are set in stone. Mike Trout, barring something drastic, will be in center field. Zach Neto will be the shortstop, Logan O'Hoppe will be the primary catcher. These things we know.

What we don't know is how the Angels will fill the holes that still exist on the current roster. At 59-60, the holes are very prevalent and certain players who have failed to fill them are playing their way off of the 2024 roster.

1) Matt Thaiss is playing his way out of the LA Angels 2024 plans

Matt Thaiss has had himself a wild year. He entered Spring Training in a competition with Logan O'Hoppe for the starting catcher job. He got off to a roaring start but stumbled to the finish and lost out. His hot start did earn him the backup catcher spot, and Thaiss looked like he might've been gone very quickly.

A very slow start including a long hitless streak and poor play behind the plate put Thaiss on thin ice. Once O'Hoppe went down, the Angels had no choice but to keep him and hope he'd turn it around. Thaiss wound up turning things around and was their most consistent hitter for a couple of months.

Unfortunately, since June 1, Thaiss has seen his season turn around back the other way. In his 47 games since June 1, Thaiss is slashing .175/.299/.277 with four home runs and 15 RBI. He ended the month of May hitting .295, and he's seen his average dip all the way down to .224 right now.

When Logan O'Hoppe returns from the IL Thaiss will lose his starting job, but he'll likely remain the backup over Chad Wallach. However, for 2024, it's hard to see the Angels not upgrading if Thaiss doesn't start hitting again. If Thaiss doesn't provide much offense he doesn't provide much of anything, because his defense isn't anything to write home about.

2) Jaime Barria is playing his way out of the LA Angels 2024 plans

Jaime Barria is an interesting case. He's shown value as a long reliever, but struggled in his stint as a starter and ever since reverting back to the bullpen, he's had a really rough go of it.

Barria is a pitcher who has only really worked in one role, a low-leverage long relief role. When he starts he's not nearly as good, and when he pitches in high-leverage he doesn't pitch well at all. We saw this in the game he blew against the Astros. Barria gave up four runs in the ninth inning of one of the most crushing losses of the season right after the all-star break.

Since the all-star break, Barria has really struggled working exclusively out of the bullpen. He's allowed 14 runs (13 earned) across 14.1 innings pitched and 10 appearances. His ERA has ballooned from 3.31 to 4.33.

Going along with Barria's suddenly-high ERA is poor peripherals. He has a 4.56 xERA, a 4.94 FIP, and a 4.96 xFIP. He's a pitcher who has consistently outperformed the advanced metrics, especially last season when he had a sparkling ERA, and we're now seeing him regress.

Barria figured to be part of the Angels 2024 plans in a long relief role, but if he doesn't turn his season around it's hard to envision that happening.

3) Eduardo Escobar is playing his way out of the LA Angels 2024 plans

Eduardo Escobar was acquired in a trade with the Mets to try and sure up the infield depth. Gio Urshela had gone down for the season while guys like Zach Neto and Anthony Rendon were hurt.

Escobar wasn't hitting much with the Mets, and nothing has changed since the Angels got their hands on him. He's slashed .239/.276/.337 with one home run and ten RBI in 29 games and 92 at-bats as an Angel. His .613 OPS is really all you need to see to tell you he's been unimpactful.

Escobar has value in theory as a veteran with a good track record who can play multiple positions in the infield and can also hit lefties at a solid clip, but he just hasn't shown much at all.

He has a team option for $9 million for the 2024 season that I felt could've been excercised if he showed value in that Gio Urshela type of role. Escobar has played all over the infield as an Angel and if he showed promise offensively, he would've been a nice fit. It's around what Urshela is currently making in 2023, and he would've been nice Anthony Rendon insurance especially. Unfortunately, it feels like the Angels will have to look elsewhere.

4) Andrew Velazquez is playing his way out of the LA Angels 2024 plans

Andrew Velazquez is what he is at this point. He's an infielder with a bunch of speed and a great glove. Or so we thought.

His glove has been worth -2 DRS and 0 OAA at shortstop in the 168.1 innings he's played there. That's average, if not below. He's also ranked in the 54th percentile in sprint speed according to baseball savant.

Last season, Velazquez ranked in the 81st percentile in outs above average and the 93rd percentile in sprint speed. Velazquez going from an elite base runner and defender to average in both categories makes him fairly useless.

Velazquez is never a player who's going to hit much, but it was those other parts to his game that made him at least a fine depth option in the infield. He could come off the bench and pinch run while being a defensive replacement at a premium position. Now that he's not good in either role, he'd have to hit to be a productive player. While his bat has been a bit better this year than in years past, it's abundantly clear that he's not a hitter.

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