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Rebound Candidate: Justin Smoak

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The Brewers entered the free-agent period with a void at first base. They let go of their top option from last year, Eric Thames, declining his $7.5MM club option for 2020 in favor of a $1MM buyout. Months before that, the Brewers traded right-handed complement Jesus Aguilar to the Rays. The Brewers are now set to rely on former Mariner, Ranger and Blue Jay Justin Smoak, whom they signed to a $5MM guarantee in December. Smoak’s contract also includes a $5.5MM option for 2021. Both prices are eminently fair, and there’s reason to believe that Smoak will justify Milwaukee’s investment.

To start off, it’s worth noting how Smoak got to this point. He’s a former standout prospect who has seldom matched the hype. The switch-hitting 33-year-old owns a mediocre .231/.324/.420 line with a 104 wRC+ (the league-average mark is 100) and 6.2 fWAR across 4,618 plate appearances. However, Smoak did somewhat begin to realize his potential in recent years. He put up in the best years of his career from 2017-18, a 1,231-PA stretch in which he batted .256/.353/.495 (128 wRC+) with 63 of his 191 home runs and posted almost all of his lifetime fWAR (5.3).

On the heels of his two consecutive strong seasons, there wasn’t reason to think Smoak would fall off in 2019. Unfortunately for him and the Blue Jays, it happened. He took 500 trips to the plate and could only muster a line of .208/.342/.406 (101 wRC+). Smoak did amass another 22 homers, but his overall production (0.2 fWAR) rendered him a replacement player. So, if you’re a Brewers fan who isn’t expecting much from Smoak in 2020, that’s understandable. However, it does appear that he deserved better a season ago, which could bode well for this year.

Despite his so-so output in his last campaign in Toronto, Smoak did manage much better strikeout and walk numbers than the typical hitter. He drew a free pass 15.8 percent of the time, almost doubling the MLB mean of 8.5 percent, and struck out in 21.2 percent of plate appearances (the league average was 23 percent). Additionally, he upped his hard-hit rate by almost 9 percent from 2018, according to FanGraphs. Smoak also swung and missed in just 8.9 percent of PA (the normal hitter checked in at 11.1) and rated as one of Statcast’s favorite under-the-radar offensive players from last season. He ranked in the league’s 72nd percentile in average exit velocity (90.3 mph), its 76th percentile in expected slugging percentage (.495, crushing his actual mark of .406) and its 86th percentile in expected weighted on-base average (.366, far outdoing his real wOBA of .323).

None of the above guarantees Smoak will rebound in 2020. That said, when you combine his bottom-line production from 2018-19 with his under-the-hood numbers from last year, he looks like a logical bounce-back candidate for this season. From the low-budget Brewers’ perspective, it was worthwhile to take a chance on Smoak.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

MLBTR Poll: The 2020 Draft

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Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, there is no telling whether we’ll even get a Major League Baseball season this year. That uncertainty also affects important off-field events that include the amateur draft. The draft is still slated to take place from June 10-12, though nobody knows if it will actually occur this year.

As we noted last week, carrying on with the draft as scheduled would be the ideal scenario for the sport. Otherwise, the lives of many draft-eligible players could be thrown (even more) into chaos. How would a cancellation or postponement impact college juniors and seniors? How would it affect prospects who are about to graduate high school? Those players’ seasons – including those who would have participated in the College World Series – have already come to a halt because of this global catastrophe that has has put a stop to scouting.

Teams have less information on prospects than they normally would, but at least one executive is unfazed. That person told Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark of The Athletic (subscription link): “We’re not going to have an opportunity to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s. But we’ve got a lot of information. We’ve seen these guys play for a long time. We know who the top players are. Let’s just get ‘em in our system.”

A shorter draft (two to three rounds) could take place, as Rosenthal and Stark write, but such an event would require teams to readjust their draft pools and how they handle undrafted players. The players may not be gung-ho on the idea, anyway. One person on the union’s side told Rosenthal and Stark that it would be a “colossal error” to go in that direction.

How to proceed with the draft is one of numerous difficult situations for which the league is going to have to find an answer. We’d all like to see the draft happen on time. Otherwise, though, MLB will have to push the festivities back to later this year or perhaps even combine this draft with the 2021 version.

(Poll link for app users)

What should MLB do about the 2020 draft?
Hold it on time 56.77% (2,637 votes)
Push it back 34.60% (1,607 votes)
Combine it with the 2021 draft 8.63% (401 votes)
Total Votes: 4,645

Rebound Candidate: Alex Wood

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On a per-inning basis, left-hander Alex Wood has been one of the most effective pitchers in Major League Baseball throughout his career. He debuted in 2013, just one year after the Braves chose him in the second round of the draft, and has regularly kept runs off the board at an excellent clip. Now 29 years old, the soft-tossing Wood owns a terrific 3.40 ERA/3.49 FIP with 8.24 K/9, 2.55 BB/9 and a 49 percent groundball rate over 839 innings.

All of Wood’s above-average production has come as a Brave and a Dodger. He spent last season with the Reds, who acquired him in a blockbuster deal a few months before the campaign began. Wood, the Reds hoped, would help their rotation reverse its fortunes after a horrid 2018. It turned out that the Reds made enormous strides in that area in 2019, but Wood had nothing to do with it. Rather, they can thank Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray, Anthony DeSclafani and the now-departed Tanner Roark for the progress they made.

The Reds could have retained Wood in the offseason and anticipated a bounce-back effort, but they instead saw him leave via free agency. That came after a poor year in which Wood was limited by injuries, which have been a problem for him all too often. Wood has racked up fewer than 155 innings four straight years, including 35 2/3 last season. Back troubles limited the Reds’ version of Wood, keeping him from debuting until the final week of July. Wood only lasted a month after that, totaling seven starts of 5.80 ERA/6.38 FIP ball with 7.57 K/9 and 2.27 BB/9. His groundball rate (38.2) dropped by almost 12 percent from the prior year along the way.

The 2019 season was undoubtedly a disaster for Wood, though he nonetheless entered the free-agent market as one of the most accomplished hurlers available. He does, after all, rank 28th among starters in ERA and 32nd in FIP dating back to the beginning of his career. New teammate and fellow southpaw David Price is among several prominent names grouped with Wood in those regards.

Wood and Price may well end up playing significant roles for the World Series-hopeful Dodgers’ rotation this season. Price is a lock after coming over in a headline-grabbing trade with the Red Sox, and Wood might join him after reuniting with the Dodgers on a one-year, $4MM guarantee as a free agent. Despite his impressive track record, Wood couldn’t land a job via the open market until Jan. 12. Still, it’s tough to find fault with the gamble on the deep-pocketed Dodgers’ part.

This has been a difficult year-plus for Wood, but he has been an asset for almost all of his time in the majors. With that in mind, it would be fair to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. If Wood’s healthy in 2020, he may emerge as a steal for Los Angeles, arguably the favorite to win the World Series this year. With Wood complementing Price, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw and Julio Urias, and with Dustin May in reserve, maybe this will finally be the season the Dodgers return to the top of the MLB mountain.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Images.

Breakout Candidate: Robert Stephenson

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We don’t know if or when the 2020 Major League Baseball season will begin, but should it occur, the Reds will enter the campaign as one of the most interesting teams in the game. You wouldn’t normally say that about a club in the throes of a six-year playoff drought – one that hasn’t even posted a .500 season during that span – but the Reds made a spirited effort to upgrade their roster over the winter. Cincinnati’s additions figure to help the team in what could be a wide-open race in the National League Central, though it will obviously need its top performers from 2019 to continue their strong play. That includes right-handed reliever Robert Stephenson, who may be on the verge of a breakout.

Now 27 years old, Stephenson entered pro baseball as the 27th overall pick in the 2011 draft. He was a consensus top-100 prospect for a few years during his days as a minor leaguer, though he hasn’t eluded adversity by any means. It took Stephenson quite some time to find his niche in the majors, where he worked as both a starter and a reliever from 2016-18 and put up an ugly 5.47 ERA/5.50 FIP with 8.64 K/9 and 5.67 BB/9 over 133 1/3 innings. Stephenson was exclusively a reliever last season, though, and the proverbial light bulb went on.

Across 57 appearances and 64 2/3 innings, Stephenson logged a 3.76 ERA/3.63 FIP with 11.27 K/9 and 3.34 BB/9. Those make for good numbers, not otherworldly production, but a deeper dive suggests Stephenson may have more in the tank.

Among qualified relievers in 2019, Stephenson ranked third in swinging-strike percentage (18.9), trailing only the Brewers’ Josh Hader and the Rays’ Nick Anderson. Those two are rightly regarded as superb relievers. For Stephenson, a notable increase in velocity was one of the causes of his success. After averaging 93.2 mph on his fastball in 2018, the number jumped to 95.0 a year ago. However, Stephenson’s slider – not his fastball – was his go-to pitch. He threw it a little under 57 percent of the time, per FanGraphs, which graded it as the best in baseball among all relievers. The pitch was indeed an absolute nightmare to contend with for hitters, who mustered an abysmal .176 weighted on-base average/.198 xwOBA against it, according to Statcast.

Speaking of Statcast, it ranked Stephenson as a top-notch hurler in several categories last year. See for yourself…

  • Fastball velocity: 78th percentile
  • Exit velocity: 81st percentile
  • Fastball spin: 86th percentile
  • Strikeout percentage: 88th percentile
  • xwOBA: 98th percentile
  • Hard-hit percentage: 98th percentile

That’ll do. Granted, Stephenson did benefit from a .230 batting average on balls in play against in 2019, but considering his tendency to limit meaningful contact, he deserves a good amount of credit for that. If he’s going to take the next step, though, keeping the ball out of the air would probably help. Stephenson owns a career 34.9 percent groundball rate, including just 31.8 last season. That said, the home run bug didn’t bite him, which it did with so many other pitchers. Only 12.7 percent of fly balls Stephenson yielded left the yard. Beyond that, a better showing versus opposite-handed hitters would help push Stephenson into the upper tier when it comes to preventing runs. Left-handed hitters’ wOBA (.315) off him was 94 points higher than righties’ (.221). That’s not to say a .315 wOBA is particularly threatening, however, as it’s in line with the figure light hitters such as Colin Moran and Nick Ahmed recorded last season.

There is undoubtedly plenty to like with Stephenson. Even if he just matches last year’s output, Stephenson may be one of the reasons the Reds push for contention in 2020. But if Stephenson puts it all together, we could be looking at one of the premier relievers in baseball.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

How The Delayed Season Impacts The Angels

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As is the case with just about every team in the majors, the coronavirus-forced delay to the start of the season will have an effect on the Angels. It may be at least two or three months before we see any meaningful games, which isn’t necessarily horrible news for the Angels’ rotation. Last season, the organization’s fifth straight without a playoff berth and its fourth in a row with more losses than wins, the Halos’ starting staff was especially ineffective. The club’s starters ranked toward the bottom of the league in virtually every key statistic and didn’t have a single hurler amass 100 or more innings.

[RELATED: Angels Offseason In Review]

One important reason the Angels’ rotation had such difficulty in 2019? The absence of two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who could only DH – not pitch – after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow in October 2018. The hard-throwing Ohtani dazzled on the mound as a rookie that year, albeit over a mere 10 starts and 51 2/3 innings, with a 3.31 ERA/3.57 FIP and 10.97 K/9 and 3.83 BB/9. The Angels desperately needed that type of front-line production from someone last year, and perhaps Ohtani will be able to provide it over a larger sample of work this season. In a normal season, though, the Angels would have had to go at least several weeks before finding out whether Ohtani would be able to pick up where he left off as a pitcher two years ago.

At last check about a month and a half ago, the 25-year-old Ohtani wasn’t going to be ready to return to the Angels’ rotation until the middle of May. Now, with the season having been pushed back, the Angels might be in position to get a full year from Ohtani the pitcher. That’s welcome news for a team that, despite its best efforts, was not able to pull in a high-end starter during the offseason.

The Angels’ staff also could be more likely to get a whole season (or something close to it) from righty Griffin Canning. His status is less certain than Ohtani’s, though. The 23-year-old received “biological injections” in his balky right elbow March 11, at which point it was reported more would be known on Canning’s status in three to four weeks. But if Canning emerges with a clean bill of health and can take the hill in 2020, it would be yet another boon for the Angels. He enjoyed a respectable debut showing last year, after all, tossing 90 1/3 frames of 4.58 ERA/4.37 FIP ball with 9.56 K/9 against 2.99 BB/9.

If the season opened when it was supposed to on March 26, it’s unclear whom the Angels would have relied on after Andrew Heaney, Julio Teheran and Dylan Bundy. Patrick Sandoval, Matt Andriese, Jaime Barria and Dillon Peters are the other starting possibilities on their 40-man roster. It’s fair to say there isn’t a ton of upside in that group, but getting Ohtani and Canning back would change that and give the Angels a better chance to vie for a playoff berth.

Elsewhere, the Angels are anticipating the MLB debut of Jo Adell – a hard-charging outfield prospect who ranks as one of the sport’s elite farmhands. The soon-to-be 21-year-old seemed like a sure thing to come up sometime this season, but will that change with a shortened schedule? Will the Angels decide Adell needs a good deal more seasoning at the Triple-A level, where he accrued 132 homer-less plate appearances last season? And what about service-time considerations? That’s something every team keeps an eye on with respect to its top prospects, but we don’t know how baseball will sort that out in a truncated campaign. And, of course, whether Adell does premiere in 2020 will have an impact on the Angels’ current right field choices, Brian Goodwin and David Fletcher chief among them.

Up in the front office, the executive who drafted Adell – general manager Billy Eppler – is entering a contract year. One has to wonder if a season of fewer than 162 games will affect his status. For example, if the Angels struggle, will owner Arte Moreno be more inclined to give Eppler the benefit of the doubt because of these strange circumstances? That’s just one of the intriguing questions the Angels are facing heading into what will be an unusual season of baseball (if we get one at all).

Mariners Option 4 Players To Triple-A

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The Mariners have reduced their spring training roster to 45 players. The team announced Friday that it optioned two infielders (Patrick Wisdom and Donovan Walton) and a pair of right-handers (Zac Grotz and Taylor Williams) to Triple-A Tacoma.

Every member of the quartet has garnered some major league experience, but Wisdom may be the most notable name in the group. He’s a former high selection of the Cardinals, who took him 52nd overall in the 2012 draft. But Wisdom, now 28 years old, has only totaled 86 major league plate appearances to this point. He spent almost all of last season as a member of the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate, with which he batted .240/.332/.513 (97 wRC+) and hit 31 home runs in 453 plate appearances. Wisdom then joined the Mariners on a minor league contract back in November.

Walton, 25, ranks as the Mariners’ No. 24 prospect at MLB.com. He did appear in seven games with Seattle last season, but he hasn’t even played at the Triple-A level yet. Walton was quite effective in Double-A ball last season, though, as he slashed .300/.390/.427 (134 wRC+) with 11 homers, 10 steals and almost as many walks (63) as strikeouts (72).

As for the optioned pitchers, the 28-year-old Williams became a Mariner in February by way of a waiver claim from the Brewers. He racked up 53 innings out of the Brewers’ bullpen in 2018, parlaying a 95 mph fastball into a respectable 4.25 ERA/3.95 FIP with 9.68 K/9 and 4.25 BB/9. But Williams spent the majority of last season at the highest level of the minors, thanks in no small part to the near-10.00 ERA he posted over 14 2/3 innings in Milwaukee.

Grotz, a former Astros, Dodgers and Mets farmhand, is in his second year in the Seattle organization. He amassed a combined 77 2/3 innings among the Double-A, Triple-A and major league levels last season. In his first 17 1/3 frames in the bigs, Grotz notched 18 strikeouts and allowed eight earned runs on 14 hits and eight walks.

East Notes: Sale, Mets, Nats, Jays

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Boston’s rotation took a hit it may not recover from in 2020 with this week’s news that ace Chris Sale will undergo Tommy John surgery. Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, who has been faced with no shortage of adversity during his first several months atop the Red Sox’s baseball department, addressed the surgery decision this week, as Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald details. The left-handed Sale dealt with elbow problems last season, but Bloom and the Red Sox don’t regret putting off his procedure. “Based on everything that went on last summer, the symptoms, the imaging, it seemed very reasonable to me to take that time off and try to rest, strengthen everything and hope for a successful path forward,” Bloom said. “Obviously up until (he felt pain) in early March, there was every indication that he was doing great.” Indeed, it was just this Wednesday that Sale seemed to be progressing in his recovery from a flexor strain. That changed a day later, and now Boston will have to go without its best pitcher until sometime in 2021.

  • The Mets have optioned shortstop Andres Gimenez, right-hander Tyler Bashlor and catcher Ali Sanchez to Triple-A Syracuse, Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets. Bashlor’s the lone member of the trio with major league experience, but he endured immense struggles as a Met last year. The most promising player in the group is the 21-year-old Gimenez, whom MLB.com ranks as the sport’s 84th-best prospect. Gimenez could be a long-term factor in the Mets’ infield, though he hasn’t advanced past Double-A ball yet. He batted .250/.309/.387 with nine home runs and 28 stolen bases over 479 plate appearances at that level last season.
  • The Nationals released reliever Hunter Strickland last weekend, and it turns out that the move was somewhat costly for the club. Had the Nats cut ties with Strickland a week earlier, they would have only had to pay him one-sixth of his $1.6MM salary, Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com notes. By parting with Strickland when it did, though, Washington had to fork over a fourth of his money; as a result, it lost $133K or so, per Zuckerman.
  • The coronavirus led the Criminal Court Complex in Clearwater, Fla., to push back Blue Jays catcher Reese McGuire’s court date to April 20, Shi Davidi of Sportsnet relays. McGuire had been scheduled to appear in court Monday as a result of his Feb. 7 arrest on a charge of “exposure of sexual organs,” a first-degree misdemeanor. He could face one year in jail and fines up to $1K.

How The Delayed Season Impacts The Yankees

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One of today’s innumerable sad realities is that the coronavirus will shorten or, in a worst-case scenario, wipe out the 2020 Major League Baseball season. We’re all hoping the world will get back to normal as soon as possible, though the calendar could turn to June or July before MLB’s Opening Day rolls around. The only bright side for baseball is that will give injured players across the majors more time to heal and perhaps play a full season, however long it lasts. Few teams (if any) stand to benefit more from the delay than the reigning American League East champion Yankees, who entered the spring among the game’s World Series favorites but have suffered one key injury after another in recent weeks.

Before the sport was forced to shut down and put off its March 26 opener, there were serious questions about how the Yankees’ roster would look for Game 1. Their rotation took a pair of massive hits with injuries to their two best Gerrit Cole complements, Luis Severino and James Paxton. Even with a truncated season likely, there’s no shot we’ll see Severino in 2020. After all, the flamethrowing right-hander underwent Tommy John surgery less than a month ago. But the outlook is much more hopeful for the oft-injured Paxton, who had back surgery in the first week of February. Paxton’s not expected to take the hill again until May or June; under conventional circumstances, that would have meant missing at least a month-plus of the season. Now, if Paxton’s recovery stays on course, he could be in line for either a full slate of games or something close to it.

A whole year of Paxton would be a boon for New York, though a late start to the season won’t be fully positive for its rotation. Righty Domingo German’s set to miss the first 63 games of 2020 as a result of a domestic violence suspension. So, even if we see far fewer games than usual, he’ll probably have to serve out that entire ban. A reasonably healthy Yankees starting staff would still be in better shape than most, though, with Cole, Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, J.A. Happ and Jordan Montgomery as their top five.

On the offensive side, the Yankees are facing a slew of injuries. That’s especially true for their outfield, which may have gone without any of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks on a typical Opening Day. That’s a lot of firepower. Judge has been limited by upper body issues and even a collapsed lung for weeks, while a calf problem has slowed Stanton this spring. But the longer we’re deprived of baseball, the better the two sluggers’ chances are of being ready from the get-go. The same applies to Hicks, who underwent Tommy John surgery last October. The belief then was that Hicks would return to action in eight to 10 months. Should that timeline hold up, he may be able to debut sometime in June at the earliest.

The health of Judge, Stanton and Hicks will obviously affect other hitters on the Yankees’ roster. For instance, how much center field will Brett Gardner play if Hicks is around for most of the year? How much action will Stanton see at DH, and if he racks up a lot of time there, will it eat into at-bats for Miguel Andujar, Luke Voit and Mike Ford to a significant extent? Will Clint Frazier, who still has a minor league option remaining, begin the season as a reserve on the Yankees’ roster or as a starter in Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre?

It’s fair to say the health of the Yankees at the outset of the season could also impact the rest of the American League. The more high-end contributors return for them by Opening Day, the better the Yankees’ chances are of winning the AL East. That, of course, damages the hopes of division rivals in Tampa Bay, Boston and Toronto. And if the Yankees are healthy enough to position themselves to grab home-field advantage in the AL playoffs, it would bolster their odds of fending off the rest of the league and capturing their first pennant and maybe their first World Series since 2009.

Offseason In Review: Los Angeles Angels

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Expectations were that the Angels would make a splashy addition to their rotation during the offseason. That didn’t happen. They did, however, reel in premier position player Anthony Rendon and one of the game’s most respected managers in Joe Maddon. A decades-long Angels employee before he went on to manage the Rays and Cubs to great success, Maddon’s taking over for Brad Ausmus, who lasted just one season as the club’s skipper.

Major League Signings

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

Few teams possessed worse starting staffs than the Angels in 2019. They ranked dead last in fWAR (3.2) and second from the bottom in both ERA (5.64) and FIP (5.41). None of their starters even touched the 100-inning mark. The team endured an unthinkable tragedy when left-hander Tyler Skaggs passed away last July.

The Angels had no choice but to carry on without Skaggs, which meant trying to upgrade their rotation over the winter. They were connected to the top free-agent arms available (Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg and Zack Wheeler) and high-end trade targets such as the Indians’ Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco. Ultimately, despite a reported $300MM offer to Cole, the Angels did not emerge with him or any of the other aforementioned starters. But they at least came away with a couple durable back-end types, trading for Dylan Bundy of the Orioles and signing ex-Brave Julio Teheran. They’re not flashy, but the two have shown an ability to competently chew up innings, which matters for a team that couldn’t find anyone to do that a season ago. Bundy has thrown 160-plus innings three seasons in a row, while Teheran has seven straight seasons of 170-plus frames under his belt.

Although Bundy and Teheran make for welcome additions, the Angels could still open the season with an underwhelming group of starters. Part of that depends on when the season actually begins, though, with the coronavirus perhaps delaying it until June or later. Had the year begun on time, the Angels would not have had either Shohei Ohtani or Griffin Canning among their starting options. As of early February, Ohtani – continuing to work back from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in October 2018 – was targeting a mid-May return to pitching. Canning received “biological injections” in his elbow two weeks ago, and his 2020 outlook isn’t clear at this point.

Even having just one of Ohtan or Canning (especially Ohtani) available when the season commences would change the complexion of the Angels’ rotation. Otherwise, they may not field a particularly appealing or deep unit after Bundy, Teheran and Andrew Heaney. The rest of their healthy 40-man possibilities include Matt Andriese, Jaime Barria, Patrick Sandoval, Dillon Peters and Jose Suarez. Andriese spent all of last season as a reliever in Arizona, where he struggled; Barria and Sandoval have promise, but neither had success in the majors in 2019; and Peters and Suarez posted brutal numbers.

Luckily for the Halos, their lineup has the potential to terrorize opposing pitchers. The floor was already reasonably high with the best player in the world, center fielder Mike Trout, as well as Ohtani leading the way. They’ll now be joined by Rendon, a superstar third baseman whom the Angels signed to a seven-year, $245MM contract after he helped the Nationals to a World Series title last season.

The Rendon acquisition came after the Angels rid themselves of pricey, oft-injured infielder Zack Cozart, whom they essentially had to bribe the Giants to take. Getting his $12MM-plus salary for this season off the books cost the Angels a quality prospect in shortstop Will Wilson, a first-round pick from last June whom the Halos had to send to San Francisco in order to convince the Giants to take Cozart.

The Cozart gamble didn’t work out for the Angels in the two years he was on the team, though there’s little reason to believe they won’t get at least some high-end seasons out of Rendon. The soon-to-be 30-year-old, by far the foremost position player on the winter’s open market, has consistently been among the elite performers in baseball since his first full season in 2014. Rendon’s the owner of four seasons of at least 6.0 fWAR, including a career-high 7.0 last year. He’ll now displace David Fletcher at third in Anaheim. While Fletcher held his own at the hot corner last season, he’s capable of playing all over the diamond (he can also handle second, short and both corner outfield positions). That versatility should continue to make Fletcher a valuable piece of the team’s roster.

The Angels received little value out of the catcher position last year, when Jonathan Lucroy, Kevan Smith, Dustin Garneau, Max Stassi and Anthony Bemboom combined for a dismal minus-0.6 fWAR. Stassi and Bemboom are still with the organization, but they’ll take a backseat to new starter Jason Castro. The $6.85MM deal the Angels handed Castro, a former Astro and Twin, looks eminently reasonable when you consider what he brings to the table. The 32-year-old Castro is an enormous asset in the pitch-framing department who, throughout his career, has thrown out a roughly average number of would-be base stealers and offered passable production for his position on the offensive side. Castro’s track record suggests that he’ll be a major upgrade over the backstops the Angels relied on a year ago.

Trout, Ohtani, Rendon, Fletcher and Castro make for over half of a promising core of regulars. There are some questions elsewhere, though. For instance, can normally big-hitting left fielder Justin Upton bounce back from an injury-marred season? The same applies to defensively brilliant shortstop Andrelton Simmons, who’s entering the last year of his contract. Meanwhile, it’s fair to wonder if first baseman Albert Pujols has anything at all left in the tank, and whether infielder Tommy La Stella and right fielder Brian Goodwin can follow up on their surprising showings from 2019. Goodwin may not be long for a starting job unless he absolutely tears it up, as the Angels have a stud prospect in soon-to-be 21-year-old Jo Adell breathing down his neck. The fact that Adell is charging toward the bigs is among the reasons the Angels bid goodbye to longtime starting right fielder Kole Calhoun over the winter, buying him out for $1MM in lieu of exercising a $14MM option. If the coronavirus doesn’t rob us of a 2020 season, Adell figures to make his much-anticipated debut this year.

Along with some iffiness in their position player cast, the Angels are facing a bit of uncertainty in their bullpen. Their relief corps last year was only a middle-of-the-pack bunch – albeit one with some intriguing choices in Hansel Robles, Ty Buttrey, Cam Bedrosian, Noe Ramirez and Keynan Middleton – and the team didn’t make any obvious improvements during the offseason. The Angels instead just made small moves such as claiming righty Mike Mayers from the Cardinals and grabbing lefty Ryan Buchter on a non-guaranteed deal. At the very least, Buchter could end up as a sneaky good signing. He has a history of strong run prevention, though the fact that he walked more hitters and yielded more home runs than ever last season forced him to settle for a minors pact.

2020 Season Outlook

On paper, it’s fair to say this is a better Angels roster than the 2019 version that spiraled to a 72-90 record and extended the franchise’s playoff drought to five years. Whether the Angels will turn into real playoff contenders this season is another matter, though, largely because it’s once again tough to bank on their rotation operating at a high level. Moreover, the Angels find themselves in a division with at least two likely playoff contenders (the Astros and Athletics) and a Rangers club that seemingly bettered itself over the winter. However, at a minimum, it would be a disappointment for the Angels not to surpass the .500 mark for the first time since 2015.

How would you grade the Angels’ offseason? (Poll link for app users)

Grade the Angels' offseason
B 55.38% (1,966 votes)
C 26.45% (939 votes)
A 11.52% (409 votes)
D 4.48% (159 votes)
F 2.17% (77 votes)
Total Votes: 3,550

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Orioles Notes: Mancini, Mountcastle, Hays

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Here’s the latest from Baltimore…

  • Orioles slugger Trey Mancini underwent surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his colon earlier this month. Fortunately, Mancini is recovering nicely. General manager Mike Elias spoke on the matter Thursday (via Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun), saying Mancini’s “doing really well” and “his physical condition is great.” That’s certainly welcome news for the Orioles and all of those who follow baseball, though it’s unclear when Mancini will be ready to take the field again.
  • The Orioles have optioned first baseman Ryan Mountcastle, right-hander David Hess, outfielder Cedric Mullins and utility player Ramon Urias to Triple-A Norfolk, Joe Trezza of MLB.com writes. The most notable player there is Mountcastle, a 2015 first-round pick and current top-100 prospect who ranks as one of the Orioles’ best farmhands. Still just 23 years old, Mountcastle climbed to the Triple-A level for the first time last season and batted .312/.344/.527 with 25 home runs in 553 plate appearances, though that solid production came with below-average strikeout and walk percentages of 23.5 and 4.3, respectively.
  • Outfielder Austin Hays figures to enter the season as the Orioles’ leadoff hitter, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com writes in a piece focusing on their roster. The 24-year-old Hays has dealt with injuries over the past couple seasons, but he racked up 75 plate appearances in the majors in 2019 and posted tremendous numbers. Hays slashed .309/.373/.574 with four home runs, a .265 ISO and seven walks against 13 strikeouts.

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