One of the complaints people make about us for some reason is that we spend too much time talking about how awesome Mike Trout is. I could issue the same complaint about those people in reverse: Clearly, they don’t spend enough time talking or thinking about how awesome Mike Trout is. He’s not just some great player, right? It’s not like you talk about Mike Trout in the same breath as Jose Bautista or Robinson Cano. Last year, Trout was better than the next-best position player by a full WAR. Over the past three years, Trout has been better than the next-best position player by more than 3 WAR. Over the past five years, Trout has been better than the next-best position player by 15 WAR. By 15 WAR! Looking at Steamer projections, over a constant denominator, there’s Trout’s projected WAR, at 7.8. And then there’s Manny Machado, at 5.9.

This is another Mike Trout puff piece, in a way. I like it because it serves a purpose, I like it because it’s simple, and I like it because I got to write the same damn article last spring. The offseason isn’t over, and certain teams are still going to make certain additions. But it’s a near guarantee the following will remain true: Mostly thanks to Trout, the Angels look like they should have the best outfield in the game.

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After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Angels. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Boston / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / San Diego / Tampa Bay / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
Most everyone has become comfortable with the fact that Mike Trout (680 PA, 9.0 zWAR) is the world’s best living ballplayer. Merely because one has grown accustomed to his excellence, however, doesn’t preclude one from wanting to have that greatness illustrated periodically. Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections facilitate an opportunity to do that. ZiPS, like other projection systems, is inherently conservative. Despite that, Trout is forecast for nine wins. For reference, consider that, since 2011, a player has reached the nine-win threshold on just six occasions. (On four of those occasions, of course, the player in question was Trout himself.) By definition, a nine-win season is an outlier. Nevertheless, Szymborski’s computer has suggested that as the median outcome for Trout in 2017.

Beyond Trout, unfortunately, there’s little reason for enthusiasm here. Kole Calhoun (620, 3.0) and Andrelton Simmons (574, 3.4) offer some promise. Of the remaining six positions on the club’s offensive depth chart, though, five of them are expected to produce only about a win.

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If you’re an avid FanGraphs reader, you might remember a piece I wrote January in which I wondered whether Vladimir Guerrero had the credentials of a Hall of Famer. The verdict? He does. As an inductee, he wouldn’t have the most impressive resume in the Hall, but he’d belong — and, according to the first 44 ballots collected by Ryan Thibodaux by way of his BBHOF Tracker, it appears as though the voters agree:

At 74%, Guerrero is right on the threshold for induction (which requires a candidate is named on 75% of ballots). That means that even if he isn’t selected this year Guerrero will almost certainly gain entry to the Hall next year. Which is great. Guerrero was a fantastic player. He’s deserving.

Larry Walker was also a great player, though. In most important ways, he was a superior one. And he’s received enough votes on previous Hall of Fame ballots to return for a seventh year. Like the previous six years, however, Walker is unlikely to be enshrined in Cooperstown this year — if the early polling holds steady, that is. In light of Guerrero’s seeming popularity, that’s strange. By most reasonable accounts, Walker has a better case. If you vote for Guerrero, you have to vote for Walker.

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Projected standings in December have little value beyond serving as a conversation starter. By our depth charts, remaining free agents are still projected to accumulate more than 50 WAR this season. Consequently, projected standings will continue to change over the rest of the winter as more signings and trades occur. As I said, though, they’re good conversation starters, and one of the more interesting conversations they’ve started this winter revolves around whether or not the Angels might actually be good in 2017.

As things stand right now, the Angels are projected to go 85-77 and finish second in the AL West behind the Astros. Not only that, but those projected 85 wins represent the fourth-highest projected total in all the American League. Does that mean it’s time to start printing up postseason tickets in Anaheim? Of course not. It’s possible, however — even in the middle of the offseason — to get a sense of current roster strengths and weaknesses from the depth charts that appear here. That’s true of every team.

Take a look at the Angels’ depth chart, for example, and you’ll find that they’re doing A-OK in center field thanks to Mike Trout, but that left field is a bit of a weak spot due to the comparatively limited projected production of Cameron Maybin. That’s certainly a conclusion which passes the sniff test.

However, even the use of projections to diagnose roster weaknesses can be misleading. The Angels’ starting rotation currently profiles to finish almost exactly in the middle of the pack among major-league teams — 16th out of 30 — which would represent a significant improvement for one of the league’s worst rotations of the 2016 season. While noting this potential for improvement, though, it’s important to recognize the unavoidable potential for deception in assigning one clean, round number to projected numbers — numbers, that is, which disguise an inherent degree of uncertainty. If Garrett Richards, Matt Shoemaker, and Tyler Skaggs are healthy and productive then, sure, the team is in good position to field an improved starting rotation. As Jeff Sullivan pointed out at the start of the offseason, however, all three of those pitchers carry significant health question marks.

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Over the past couple months, I’ve felt somewhat bullish regarding the Angels’ chances of being competitive in the season ahead. They’re not a great team, and they’re maybe not even a good team, but they feel to me like an underrated team. Everyone points to a shaky pitching staff and, indeed, there’s not much in the way of depth there. The bullpen could use some assistance. But there should, at least, be solid arms in the starting rotation. Matt Shoemaker ought to make a successful return from his brain injury, as crazy as that sounds as a sentence. Tyler Skaggs is finally all recovered from his elbow surgery. And Garrett Richards is going to pitch. That’s the way things look right now, anyway.

The Richards case is going to be a big one. If he’s able to regularly take the mound and throw five or six innings, that could prove to be a game-changer, in the smaller and bigger pictures. Richards’ health won’t affect only Richards and the ballclub around him. All of baseball is going to be paying attention closely, because a successful future could spark a revolution.

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While you were off doing something else over the weekend, the Angels picked up a new second baseman. Granted, their new second baseman was to be someone else’s bench player, so we’re not talking about a blockbuster, and that same would-be bench player had just expressed frustration over losing his starting job. And so Danny Espinosa was sent to California, with the Nationals picking up Austin Adams and Kyle McGowin.

You want to know another way to know this wasn’t big? The Nationals made a trade for Angels prospects. As we all understand, the Angels don’t have prospects, and here Adams might be the one who’s slightly interesting. He’s been a tough-to-hit Double-A reliever with significant control problems. The Nationals didn’t get a lot for Espinosa’s final year of team control. The Angels, though, should probably be pretty happy. They’ve plugged what had been a gaping hole, and Espinosa suffers from a perception problem.

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Sherman Johnson, seen here beginning a terrific double play, wasn’t selected in the Rule 5 draft.

The purpose of this post is to notify the right-thinking members of the public that, contradictory to what “sense” and “reason” would appear to dictate, that Angels infielder and future major-leaguer Sherman Johnson was not selected in baseball’s Rule 5 draft this morning.

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Pitching coordinators play an important role. They oversee development throughout their respective club’s minor-league system, roving between affiliates to ensure that organizational philosophies — many of which they’ve had a hand in designing — are being followed. Their responsibilities extend to the individual arms, as well. Each pitcher has a player plan, and the coordinators are expected to optimize his chances of making it to the big leagues.

Ron Roenicke isn’t a pitching coordinator. Nor is Erik Bennett. But both have up-close familiarity with what the position entails. Roenicke — currently on Mike Scioscia’s staff in Anaheim — has coached and managed in both the major and minor leagues since 1992. Bennett has been a pitching coach in the Angels system since 2003, most recently at the Triple-A level. He spent the bulk of the 2016 season in the big leagues, filling in for bullpen coach Scott Radinsky, who was recovering from a medical procedure.

Roenicke and Bennett shared their insight on the roles and responsibilities of pitching coordinators this past summer.

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Ron Roenicke: “The coordinators are obviously important. The pitching coach at the level a player is at is probably even more important. He’s going to be building a relationship with the guy. He’s going to know his head — what he’s thinking about — and what his positives are, on a daily basis. The coordinators — at least the good ones — will go in and take what the coach gives them, and they’ll watch to see the difference between spring training and that specific time.

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The Angels presently project to have baseball’s worst bullpen. Now, they know it’s a potential weakness, and they’re going to make further moves to try to shore things up, but some time ago the front office did re-sign Andrew Bailey for a year and $1 million. It’s terribly unexciting, and this isn’t even new. Again: old transaction! But I thought about this when I read a new Mike Petriello article about Statcast stars. Here we are.

Seth Lugo got a mention in the article. From a Statcast perspective, Lugo is fascinating, because his curveball generated easily the league’s highest average spin rate. We don’t yet know quite what that means, but it’s not dull. Now, what about fastball spin rate? Justin Verlander had the highest average among starters. Carl Edwards Jr. thrived with his high-spin fastball out of the bullpen. And yet, while Edwards ranked second in average fastball spin, Andrew Bailey ranked first. His fastball averaged 2,674 RPM. The league-average four-seamer came in at 2,264 RPM.

Now, Bailey wound up with an ERA over 5. That’s a problem, and that feels like it ought to be more meaningful than some spin-rate metric. Bailey hasn’t had a positive WAR as a big-league reliever since 2011. He’ll turn 33 years old next May. When the Angels first re-signed Bailey for 2017, I came to this very screen, and I almost wrote an InstaGraphs post, but I stopped myself. I’m not picking Bailey as some ultra-sleeper. But there’s just enough for me to be intrigued. The same goes for the Angels, who plucked Bailey from the Phillies late in the summer. After making the move, Bailey’s cutter gained three miles per hour. His curveball gained a tick. And, with the Angels, in a small sample, Bailey threw 70% strikes. For the season overall, he threw two-thirds of his pitches for strikes. That’s what he did at his peak between 2009 – 2011.

Bailey’s top velocity is down a mile or two from earlier in his career, but now it seems like he could have the strikes back, and the fastball spin should make it hard to square up if hitters have to stay concerned about the other pitches. The increased velocity should help that, and even last season, Bailey generated one of the higher foul-ball rates, which is a sort of compromise between a ball in play and a swinging strike. Foul balls for pitchers are more good than bad. Bailey showed more than he had in a while, and his best version was a quality closer. This package might give the Angels a decent setup guy.

Mostly, I just want for more people to know about Bailey’s spin. Spin can go only so far — consult Bailey’s recent ERAs. But Bailey just got to blending spin and strikes, and his stuff played up in September. From a projection standpoint, Bailey isn’t very good. From a more scouty perspective, there could well be something left in the tank. The best starting point is always an interesting fastball, and Bailey’s is more interesting than most.

The Angels: what a case study in weird this team is. Here are a few things to consider about them, if this is your first time reading about baseball:

1. The Angels have the best player in baseball, Mike Trout.
2. The Angels, as a whole, are not a good team.
3. The Angels have a pitching staff held together by chewing gum, rubber bands, and Cam Bedrosian.
4. The Angels have a farm system held together by chewing gum, rubber bands, and Jahmai Jones.

It’s easy to make fun of the Angels — and don’t worry, we’ll do that — but they’re infinitely more interesting than your run-of-the-mill bad baseball team. This isn’t the Braves we’re talking about here. The Angels aren’t in full-on tank mode, and even if they were, they have Trout making them not completely horrendous through sheer force of will. Despite their poor 2016 season, they didn’t even finish in last place in their division, because Oakland exists — and, again, Mike Trout. However, the Angels did do something well in 2016 besides provide the best player on the planet with meaningful employment.

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