The 2021 Angels missed the playoffs, marking the seventh straight season and 11th in the last 12 that this was the result. They haven’t won a playoff game since Oct. 22, 2009, just a few months after they drafted a kid named Mike Trout out of Millville High School in New Jersey.
Trout has three MVPs, most recently in 2019, and the Angels also have the reigning AL MVP in Shohei Ohtani. You can add Anthony Rendon to the mix and few teams can match them in terms of a trio with such star power.
The task now is to convert said star power into a playoff berth and then hopefully a deep playoff run. The baseball world getting Trout and Ohtani in the ALCS and World Series would be such a blessing for the sport.
Of course, they’ll need a lot more than just the star power of a few players. This franchise has proven as much over the course of the past decade.
Win total projection, odds
- 2021 record: 77-85
- 2022 SportsLine projection: 85-77
- World Series odds (via Caesars Sportsbook): 30-1
Projected lineup
- Shohei Ohtani, DH/P
- Mike Trout, CF
- Anthony Rendon, 3B
- Jared Walsh, 1B
- Max Stassi, C
- Brandon Marsh, LF
- Jo Adell, RF
- Matt Duffy, 2B
- David Fletcher, SS
Bench: C Kurt Suzuki, IF Jack Mayfield, UT Tyler Wade, OF Justin Upton, OF Taylor Ward
If Upton stays healthy, he’ll seen plenty of time in the starting lineup. There will be interchanging with the bench pieces and several starting spots as well. Manager Joe Maddon likes to tinker.
Of note: There’s now a rule that allows the pitcher to keep hitting in the DH spot once removed from the game as a pitcher. That means Ohtani could conceivably hit all game, every game.
Projected rotation
- RHP Shohei Ohtani
- RHP Noah Syndergaard
- LHP Patrick Sandoval
- RHP Michael Lorenzen
- LHP José Suarez
- RHP Jaime Barría
Right-hander Griffin Canning will start the season on the 60-day injured list as he continues to recover from a stress fracture in his back, but he could figure in the mix down the road.
Projected bullpen
Closer: Raisel Iglesias
Setup: RHP Ryan Tepera, RHP Mike Mayers, RHP Archie Bradley, LHP Aaron Loup
Middle: RHP Austin Warren, RHP Jimmy Herget, LHP José Quijada
Long: RHP Jhonathan Diaz
Ohtani’s encore
From Shohei Ohtani’s signing in front of the 2018 season up until last season, the main curiosity was whether or not he’d be able to successfully play as a true two-way player for a full season. He went out and did it in amazing fashion in 2021, winning the AL MVP and captivating the entire sports world. He had 639 plate appearances and threw 130 1/3 innings. This season, he’s slated to be the Angels’ Opening Day starter and — thanks to a rule change — can now bat the entire game when he starts on the mound, even after he’s removed from his role as pitcher.
Is it possible he tops 600 plate appearances again while throwing something like 150-plus innings? If he does so, odds are he’s one of the most valuable players in baseball again.
Keeping the stars on the field
Keep in mind, Ohtani was unable to stay healthy 2018-20. Sure, most of that stemmed from one arm injury, but it was a serious one and he’s pitching at least once a week. There’s always the fear something happens again. If the Angels are to break through with a playoff berth, a fully-functional Ohtani is of the utmost importance.
And he’s not alone.
Mike Trout was slashing .333/.466/.624 (195 OPS+) last season when he went down with a calf injury and he didn’t make it back. He ended up playing in only 36 games. He’s 30 years old, so there’s every reason to believe a 100-percent Trout is still one of the truly elite players in baseball. Will he be 100 percent, though?
Anthony Rendon’s 2021 season was even more a disaster. He had injuries to his groin, back, knee, triceps, hamstring and hip. It was hip surgery in August that ultimately shut him down, but he should be all the way back by now. He’s been playing in spring training games. Rendon’s 2019 season was his last full one and he finished third in the NL in MVP voting when he hit .319/.412/.598 (157 OPS+) with 44 doubles, 34 homers, 126 RBI and 117 runs. Can the Angels get a piece of that this year?
Noah Syndergaard is new here and he’s coming off Tommy John surgery. He might get a late start, but he’ll be in the rotation eventually and he’ll likely still have some of the best raw stuff in baseball. It’s been a while since he’s looked like a top-shelf pitcher, but from 2015-18, Syndergaard was 37-22 with a 2.93 ERA and 573 strikeouts in 518 1/3 innings. Will he be back? He’s capable of pitching like an ace and is still just 29 years old.
Justin Upton isn’t even remotely in the conversation of being a “star” anymore, but he hit 30 homers in 2019. Heck, he hit 17 in 318 at-bats last year. A fully-healthy Upton would provide a boost to the latter part of the order.
Overall, though, so much of the 2022 Angels’ success, of lack thereof, will be determined from how many games they get out of Ohtani, Trout, Rendon and Syndergaard.
The outfield prospects
Where the Angels could supplement the stars has long been a question. Perhaps Jared Walsh keeps it up after his breakout year while David Fletcher looks to bounce back from an awful 2021 season. A portion of the production load from the supporting cast needs to be shouldered by Brandon Marsh and Jo Adell, though.
Marsh is a former second-round pick out of high school who worked up into the top-40ish range of prospect lists before last season. He hit a modest .254/.317/.356 in 70 games, but we saw a lot of his all-around game and, remember, there wasn’t a minor-league season in 2020. Playing 96 Double-A games in 2019 to 24 Triple-A games in 2021 before hitting the majors had to be a rough transition. He’s not a power hitter, at least not yet, but he has the average and on-base chops to help the team if he can better figure things out in his first full season.
The 10th overall pick in 2017, Adell has twice come up to great fanfare as a top-10 prospect (Baseball Prospectus had him second behind Wander Franco) and things have yet to click, but he’s still only 22 years old. And maybe they did start to click late last season? In his last 17 games, Adell hit .302 with a .524 slugging, a double, two triples, three homers and 14 RBI. There’s big potential in here, perhaps even five-tool star potential. Does he start reaching it in 2022?
Rotation upside
Ohtani and Syndergaard have the ability to pitch like a pair of aces. We know that.
Patrick Sandoval started 14 games last season and had a 3.39 ERA with 86 strikeouts in 79 2/3 innings. He was also in the 97th percentile of pitchers in exit velocity allowed (that is, he was one of the very best in baseball at inducing weak contact).
José Suarez showed signs of strong upside as well, as the 24-year-old southpaw had a 2.97 ERA in his last five starts and though he isn’t quite as good as Sandoval on this front, he also limited hard contact.
And, of course, people have been dreaming on Griffin Canning since he was a second rounder out of UCLA in 2017. Maybe a second-half surge?
There’s talent here, even if it’s blanketed with question marks.
Setup help for Iglesias
Raisel Iglesias was one of the best relievers in baseball last season, even if it wasn’t noticed by the masses. He had a ridiculous 103-to-12 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 70 innings. There’s only so much one guy can do, however. Mike Mayers has shown himself as a capable reliever, but the Angels grabbed some help in the offseason in three newcomers.
Archie Bradley has been inconsistent, but has also flashed elite talent as a reliever (see: 2017 and 2020). Last season, the strikeouts were too low and the walks were too high. He’s also still only 29 and we know how volatile reliever performance can be from year to year. And maybe being freed from the Phillies bullpen is all the help he needs. It certainly can’t hurt at this point.
Ryan Tepera posted a 2.79 ERA and 0.88 WHIP with 74 strikeouts in 61 1/3 innings for the Cubs and White Sox. He held opposing hitters to a .164/.242/.272 line. A major change in pitch selection (cutter-heavy, fewer sinkers) along with some mechanical tweaks suggest this wasn’t a fluke.
Aaron Loup had a 0.95 ERA, 2.45 FIP and 0.94 WHIP in 56 2/3 innings last season. He was tough on everyone, but lefties hit just .167/.226/.214 against him.
The path is clear for Maddon to have a great back-end of his bullpen.
Return to playoffs?
A litany of little items are pointing in a positive direction for the Angels when it comes to finally making the playoffs again.
There was the expansion of the playoffs to now include a third wild-card team per league. There’s the hope of better health for their stars. There’s strong upside in the rotation in front of a beefed up bullpen. The AL West contains an A’s team in the middle of a teardown, a Rangers team that spent a truckload of money in free agency yet still isn’t much more than a partially-good team and a Mariners team that just won 90 games despite posting a negative-51 run differential.
This isn’t to say the Mariners will be bad or the Rangers won’t be improved — additionally, the Astros are still likely the best team in the division. It is to say the path is open for the Angels to finish in second place. If things fall into place and that happens, the chances are pretty good they’ll be able to secure one of the three wild card spots.
