The Angels Have Won the Offseason
Yes, the offseason is just starting, and because of that, it might seem premature to begin considering which team has most improved its roster for 2018. Merely by winning the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, though, the Angels have probably already done enough to emerge victorious from winter. And more than that, the Angels remain active.
Over the last few days, they’ve added enough wins to make themselves favorites for a Wild Card berth, at the very least.
The Angels doesn’t necessarily deserve all the credit. Signing Ohtani is kind of like handing over $20 at a local convenience store and winning a Powerball jackpot. While the team’s front office no doubt made a compelling pitch, Ohtani’s decision seemed to be tied to geography and factors beyond many clubs’ control.
We can give the Angels far more praise for the vision and void-filling that comes along with coming to terms on a three-year, $38-million deal with Zack Cozart on Friday.
Source: Cozart deal with #Angels is for three years, $38M. LAA just announced signing.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 15, 2017
While FanGraphs’ Depth Chart projections call for Cozart to “decline” from five to three wins in 2018, he’s a good bet to produce surplus value on the deal for the Angels with a win currently valued at about $9 million
With health, he’s a sure bet to fill the club’s glaring third-base void and improve its overall defense. The Angels were creative and opportunistic to target Cozart in a market where most contenders have no shortstop need. It’s the second major hole the Angels have addressed this week and third to date in the offseason, when including Ian Kinsler and Ohtani. And Ohtani is a candidate to address multiple needs simultaneously as a two-way player, Angels’ designated hitters having produced a combined -2.0 WAR in 2017, worst in the AL.
The Angels have probably upgraded four positions. Certainly three. The trio of Cozart, Kinsler, and Ohtani are going to cost a combined $36 million in 2018, including Ohtani’s bonus (but not the posting fee). That’s a modest price. There’s a lot surplus value potential there.
Angels GM Billy Eppler really likes defense. With the exception of first base, his infield defense is now really something.
Just two days after upgrading second base through a trade for Kinsler — the Angels ranked 28th in second base WAR with -0.3 last season — Cozart, an above-average defensive shortstop, will be shifting down the defensive spectrum to third base in deference to the game’s best defensive shortstop in Andrelton Simmons. The Angels ranked 21st in the majors in third base WAR last season (2.0). While we don’t know how Cozart’s defense will translate, necessarily, he seems like a good bet to make the transition.
The Angels ranked third among all clubs in UZR last season (31.7) and 11th in DRS (17). Cozart, meanwhile, has recorded a +45.9 UZR and +56 DRS over the course of his career at shortstop; Kinsler +40.4 and +108, respectively, at second base.
Their newest starting pitcher, Ohtani, produced a 52.2% ground-ball rate last season in Japan. With this new infield, the Angels would do well to add more ground-ball arms as they ranked 27th in ground-ball rate (41.6%) last season.
| Name | Pos | Inn | DRS | UZR/150 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jefry Marte | 3B | 64.2 | 1 | 18.9 |
| Luis Valbuena | 3B | 455.1 | -2 | 1.5 |
| Kaleb Cowart | 3B | 57.1 | -1 | 4.2 |
| Cliff Pennington | 3B | 108 | -1 | -6.5 |
| Yunel Escobar | 3B | 755.1 | -9 | -3.3 |
| Team totals | -12 | |||
| Danny Espinosa | 2B | 585.2 | 1 | 5.4 |
| Cliff Pennington | 2B | 309.2 | -1 | 4.5 |
| Kaleb Cowart | 2B | 225.1 | 0 | 5.5 |
| Nolan Fontana | 2B | 49 | 0 | 15.2 |
| Nick Franklin | 2B | 69 | 1 | 26.4 |
| Brandon Phillips | 2B | 202 | -2 | 0.3 |
| Team totals | -1 |
Even if Cozart regresses some with his bat (as is forecast in his 2018 projection), his glove makes him a worthwhile investment. If he consolidates some of his offensive gains, he’ll be a steal.
Cozart remarkably improved his wRC+ by 50 points from 2016 (91) to 2017 (141). He posted career bests across his triple-slash line .297/.385/.548 and in homers (24). He did this, however, while recording basically the same batted-ball profile, with GB/FB ratios of .91, .99, and .90 over the last three seasons. Cozart was an offensive beast in 2017 despite posting a below-average exit velocity (89.5 mph) on fly balls and line drives. He’s a player that benefited from playing in Cincinnati and hitting a juiced ball. (Though the Angels’ ballpark played similarly for right-handed home-run power last year.)
His exit velocity sat between Max Moroff and Luis Sardinas’s last season. He BABIP’d over .300 (.312) for the first time in a full season. He had the third-largest gap between his wOBA and expected wOBA. Cozart likely, almost certainly, just had the best offensive season of his career. But the Angels really wanted his glove. He doesn’t need to post a wRC+ of 140 again to have value, though the club is hoping he can exceed his career mark of 90 wRC+ for the moment.
The offseason is just getting started after a quiet period to date. The position-player market started to thaw Friday with the signing of Carlos Santana by the Phillies and Cozart’s move to the Angels. It’s still early in the offseason, but the Angels might have already won it.
The Angels are still far from catching the Astros. That might be impossible. But they entered the offseason on the bubble and now appear to be a Wild Card favorite. Not bad for December 15.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
Who’s in their bullpen?
Their bullpen was one of their strengths last year. The rotation is the question mark though Ohtani makes it better.
Petit’s gone. I guess Parker found it but will he put up another 1+ WAR.
Noe Ramirez was good and if Bedrosian finds it then they’ll theoretically have 7/8/9 taken care of.
Nah. Who’s on First.
Well, thanks to the Kinsler and Cozart signings, what’s his name is no longer on second, and I don’t know is no longer on third.
They certainly have had an excellent offseason. Now the big question is whether Pujols will DH on the days when Ohtani is not in the lineup, or will they cut their losses and let Pujols go?
But then how will they replace all those RBIs?
nm
Eppler sure seems like he’s good at his job, but if he figures out a way to cut ties with Pujols he deserves a big, shiny award.
Figures out a way? Releasing someone shouldn’t be too difficult, aside from maybe some paper work.
Ohtani and Pujols to the Phillies for a PTBNL.
I thought Pujols’ contract contains a post-retirement front office job but the money is conditioned on him actually taking a job? That suggests they probably won’t release him, because they want him to stay after retiring.
If you estimate 700 PA available at each of 1B and DH, and Otani gets approximately 300, that means Cron and Pujols are splitting 1100. Let’s say Otani gets 400 and Cron plays almost every game at 1B, then Pujols only gets 300-350.
That’s a lot of money sitting on the bench, but maybe more rest will help him be closer to at least an average hitter (which would still be well below average for a DH).
Amazing bargain. I know he will most likely regress, but how often can you sign a guy who just posted 5 WAR for basically a 1.5 WAR per year price?
The Angels signed a 10 WAR guy for basically a 0 WAR price several years ago–did it more than once, in fact.
On the open market?
Interestingly enough, CJ Cron is also not a bad defender since the beginning of 2016.
He lost weight and practiced his footwork and range that preseason and since then has been worth 6 DRS and both 2016 and 2017, he has provided a positive UZR/150, making him one of the top 3 or so defenders in the American League at 1B among players with at least 1500 innings played.
Cron was actually pretty good at hitting in the 2nd half last year too. I think he very well could be the short- and long-term answer at first base.
For whatever reason, he always gets good in the Second half and sucks in the first. He needs to come out the gate hot.
FWIW: For his career, he’s got a 106 wRC+ in the first half and 108 wRC+ in the second half.
With all of these new acquisitions, Eppler isn’t going to let Scioscia continue to set the lineup, is he?
I had completely forgotten that Phillips was traded to LAA until this article.
Don’t forget about extending Upton as well. That filled an OF hole almost as glaring as the infield holes filled by Cozart and Kinsler.
The chances of an MLB team landing Ohtani: Roughly 1 in 27, give or take.
The chances of me winning the Powerball with a single ticket: 1 in 290 million, give or take.
I promise you, if I ever have the same odds of winning the Powerball as the Angels did of landing Ohtani I will buy a lot of tickets.
Premature.
They are still the Angels. Won’t be any threat to any of the serious AL teams.
They improved their chances of getting one of the wildcards. All you have to do is get into the postseason, it’s a crapshoot where a team with a few performances and lucky bounces can beat the best teams in short series.
CAn the author or others say why they choose which park factors? BP, FG and Statcorner all vary a lot. I also don’t know how to search the latter so as to dump the MiLB results
But really just interested in their variance (and that doesn’t even include warmer vs cooler month changes some recent FG articles have analyzed… sorry, forgot who wrote those)
The pujols decision is not really on eppler, of course he wants him gone but it depends on the owner whether he wants to eat 100+ millions. The gm can’t decide that, those decisions (like the a rod decision in NY) are made by the owners.
I think the owner might be willing to eat 2 seasons but not 4. If he is even worse than that maybe they do it this year but they are probably hoping for a modest bounce back (say 0.8 instead of minus 2 war) so he remains at least playable for another year or two.
There is no solution for the pujols situation that doesn’t involve eating all the money and you must find someone who is willing to do that.
I like cozart and I actually wrote a community article suggesting the nats should get him. He will regress a lot but even using projections he will be worth like 6.5 wins in 3 years, which comes out as a value of like 60m. I speculated 45m for 3 years so this deal is even better.
However I’m not sure how his power will play outside the band box. He is an excellent air ball hitter (38%gb, 15 degrees LA) but as the article said his exit velo is below average. Not billy hamilton bad for course but still clearly below AVG.
That means he relies a lot on getting the right trajectory, that could mean he could see a larger than usual drop of in other parks.
Still even with 15 HR he easily should be like a 2 to 2.5 win player if he stays healthy.
Anxiously awaiting the season to watch Sciosia screw this up (yet again).
The Angels have indeed won the offseason.
And they do-nothing, spend-nothing Dodgers have lost it.
Good illustration of how “winning the offseason” is basically cheering for the second derivative.
No discussion of Upton. That’s their biggest deal and really can’t be overlooked
Definitely a heck of a start. Not to mention they managed to sign Kevin Maitan as well.
Strongly disagree that the Angels shouldn’t be given full credit for landing Ohtani. Yes, Ohtani only met with a limited amount of clubs, and the Angels being one of them, but Ohtani said he chose the Angels because he felt a special connection with them. I don’t know what other evidence suggests that the Angels just got lucky here. Whatever they’ve built, whatever pitch they made, whatever presentation they put together, it clicked with Ohtani. Credit where credit due.
Well, you have to mention the Yankees, who were a year or two away from being serious contenders at the beginning of 2017, to one game away from playing in the World Series, to acquiring the NL MVP and still getting under the cap after 14 years of tax penalties.
The turnaround during the season was amazing enough, but this off-season has turned them into a superteam, with a Bronx-Bombers offense, a loaded farm system, and now financial flexibility for next year when Machado, Harper, and maybe Kershaw will be available. The positioning is incredible.
Aside from what may happen with Ohtani’s elbow, I don’t think any other team is as improved as LAA.
Stanton was a flashy pickup, but the Yanks already had the best OF in MLB in 2017. His greatest contribution may come as part of the DH rotation. The Yankees now have holes at 2B and 3B, and who knows what Wade, Torreyes, and/or Torres may contribute next year.
On paper they look good, for sure. But their starting pitching is still a question. How’s Richards’ health? Skaggs’? Heaney? Ohtani is still a relative unknown, but at least they’ve done enough to maybe make WC.