Overall, the Los Angeles Angels didn’t have many weak areas. If they did, they more than made up for it in other areas in which they were exceptional. The Halos were scorching hot for the last half of the season, and were able to take advantage of a spiraling Oakland Athletics ball club to win the AL West. In the playoffs though it was all for naught as the Angels would fall victim to the Kansas City Royals’ dominant playoff run.
There were a couple of key players in the Angels equation of success, and they will need to duplicate their performances in 2015 in order for the Angels to compete with the rest of the AL West. The big issue is that the Angels have a huge number of depth players that they could be losing in free agency, if they can retain a few of their key free agents, will L.A. be able to repeat their success in 2015?
Covering the Bases: L.A. Angels
Think about this for a second: The Angels worst month was 14-12. The Angels were a team with power, and lots of it. Collectively, they belted 155 home runs in 2014, which was good for seventh in the majors. It’s not always that home runs translate into runs scored, but in the Angels case, it did. The Angels were the top dog in runs scored.
For as explosive as their offense was, pitching was very mediocre overall. As a group, the pitchers posted an ERA of 3.58 with 1342 strikeouts. Don’t let those numbers fool you though. They posted a 3.24 ERA with 553 strikeouts after the All-Star Break. If not for the defense, the pitching would’ve been four times as bad. The Angels defense ranked seventh among all of baseball in UZR at 26.0. Every team has a weak area, but the good teams nullify their trouble spots and still manage to win ballgames. The Angels certainly managed to do this last season.”
There were some key contributing players in 2014 that really took them from an average team to a really good team. Mike Trout, American League MVP, was the most important piece of the puzzle in 2014. A .287 batting average isn’t exactly MVP material, but it was the never ending stream of Web Gems and his 36 home runs that may have pushed voters to vote for Trout. The other important player to the Angels was Garrett Richards. Though he missed a little bit of time with a knee injury, Garrett Richards was one of the front men for the Angels starting rotation. Richards is only 26 years old, and is a Super-two player. In his second full season, and first as a fulltime starter, Richards posted a 2.61 ERA with a 139 ERA+, and 8.8 strikeouts per nine innings. Together, these two guys, though Richards was hurt for the last part of the season, guided their team to the ALDS, only to have their dreams crushed by a surging Royals team.
The Angels don’t have any major free agents on the roster except for Jason Grilli, but they do have quite a few overall: Tony Campana, Ian Stewart, Randy Wolf, Joe Thatcher, Michael Roth, John McDonald, Mark Mulder, Carlos Pena, Wade LeBlanc, John Hester, Roberto Hernandez, Gordon Beckham, Dane De La Rosa, David Carpenter, Sean Burnett, John Buck, and Brennan Boesch. All in all, the Angels are looking to lose ten pitchers to free agency, and are definitely in the market for pitchers of any kind.
In 2014, the Angels were the best team in the AL, at least on paper, and may have a tough time living up to that in 2015. Keeping the same key players healthy will help out tremendously. Though they have to compete with the Oakland A’s to win the AL West, the Angels have a good shot at another division title next year.
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Main Photo Credit: Keith Allison via Photopin CC
