The Angels’ Hot Start Is Partially Taylor-Made
The Los Angeles Angels are off to a 13-7 start. A couple of the big reasons for that are not unexpected. Mike Trout, who hadn’t played in a regular-season game in 11 months, is off to a blazing start even by his robust standards, sporting an OPS north of 1.200 and already nearing the sort of WAR we expect a league-average player to post over six months. Shohei Ohtani isn’t torching the league to quite the same degree but he’s also on a 6-WAR pace when you combine his hitting and pitching. Still, in the past, the team has struggled even with two superstars at the top of their game. What’s working for Los Angeles now is truly unusual compared to recent years: getting lots of contributions from the other guys. And none of “the other guys” have stood taller so far than Taylor Ward.
I’m always one of the first to yell “April!” about small-sample-size stars, but Ward’s performance has still been stunning. His .381/.509/.762 line calculates out to a 269 wRC+, besting his teammate Trout and everyone else with at least 50 PA this season. What makes it even more impressive is that some of the numbers fueling that line are of the sort that are meaningful in a small sample.
There’s a bit of a fallacy with extreme data in small samples (if it has a name, I don’t know it). In baseball, when a .280 hitter hits .300, people accept it as normal, but when a .280 hitter hits .500, it is generally written off as a fluke. But while the “hitting .500” part is, the .280 hitter who is hitting .500 is more likely to have improved than the one posting .300.
Ward’s .414 BABIP is probably much higher than where he’ll end up, but you can knock 100 points off it, and he’s still off to a better than 1.000 OPS start. Statcast’s xBA and xSLG have his early-season surge at .380 and .683, both sterling numbers, and ZiPS’ slightly different (and predictive) method has him in the same area. You can’t fake plate discipline any more than you can fake power, and Ward has excelled there as well. He’s 10th in the league (again, 50 PA) in lowest out-of-zone swing percentage. That’s not from Jeremy Hermida-esque passivity, either; of the top 20 players in not swinging at bad pitches, only three hitters (Will Smith, Anthony Rendon, and Chris Taylor) have swung at more good pitches than Ward has.
This type of plate discipline isn’t very streaky at all. Undisciplined hitters don’t have streaks of crazy-good swing decisions. Javier Báez has never had an out-of-zone swing percentage below 30% in any 15-game stretch, and Salvador Perez hasn’t had a run below 30% since he was a rookie. Ward has 11 walks to nine strikeouts, and while he probably won’t walk more than he strikes out over the long haul, his 2017-19 minor league results (202 walks against 255 strikeouts) provide a not unreasonable proxy.
Sure, Ward isn’t Mike Trout or a superstar; he probably isn’t even a regular ol’ star. But there were always reasons to think that he could at least hit. His first couple of cups of coffee in the big leagues might have tasted a bit like a pot of diner Sanka brewed six hours ago, but he showed improvement the last two seasons in the majors. The Angels sent him down last year to make room for Justin Upton’s return from the IL, but it wasn’t due to performance; Ward finished 2021 with a 111 wRC+, perfectly respectable for an average corner outfielder.
The projection systems didn’t think that level of performance was outrageous. ZiPS projected a 112 wRC+ coming into the season, while Steamer was at 108. A lot of that bullish offensive projection stemmed from his 2018-19 minor league performance, which coincided with the team moving him out from behind the plate. In 2018, Ward hit .349/.446/.531 combined between Double-A Mobile and Triple-A Salt Lake, then hit .306/.427/.584 for Salt Lake in ’19. This isn’t an unusual story; developing as a hitter while catching is difficult, and young backstops often have very odd development patterns. Ward remains an emergency catching option, and the Angels have tinkered a bit, but it’s unlikely he’ll ever play there much again. Combining his minor league translations and major league lines, ZiPS had Ward at .245/.342/.447 in 2019 and .264/.348/.477 in ’21.
From a projection standpoint, one thing that worked against Ward was uncertainty. The 2020 season robbed him — and many other fringe major leaguers — of additional opportunities to rewrite the book, and as an older minor leaguer (he was 27 last season), the algorithms, just like flesh-and-blood observers, took his Triple-A feats with a grain of salt.
For 2022-24, ZiPS originally saw Ward as a roughly average player with a WAR/600 PA of 1.8 in ’22, 2.0 in ’23, and 1.9 in ’24. His offensive outburst in April has significantly shifted that outlook.
| Year | BA | OBP | SLG | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SB | OPS+ | DR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | .273 | .368 | .498 | 376 | 67 | 103 | 22 | 2 | 19 | 58 | 53 | 6 | 134 | -3 | 2.5 |
| 2023 | .265 | .358 | .496 | 464 | 79 | 123 | 28 | 2 | 25 | 80 | 62 | 7 | 130 | -2 | 2.7 |
| 2024 | .264 | .358 | .497 | 443 | 75 | 117 | 27 | 2 | 24 | 77 | 59 | 6 | 130 | -3 | 2.5 |
| 2025 | .258 | .354 | .488 | 430 | 71 | 111 | 26 | 2 | 23 | 72 | 58 | 6 | 127 | -3 | 2.2 |
| 2026 | .254 | .348 | .467 | 413 | 66 | 105 | 24 | 2 | 20 | 66 | 54 | 5 | 120 | -4 | 1.6 |
That’s basically an extra projected win per full season, which is about as much of a boost as is possible from such a small number of games. Even if Ward doesn’t match up to the improved projections, there’s a lesson to be learned here that his team should take to heart. You can’t find what you don’t look for, and the Angels have long been more than happy to put up with extended stretches of mediocrity (or worse) from older players for no other reason than that they were paying those players. Well-run organizations give talent that’s young enough to show real improvement opportunities to flip the narrative; the Dodgers couldn’t find Max Muncy or Chris Taylor without trying them.
If in Taylor Ward the Angels have indeed found an above-average starter to complement Trout and Ohtani, it’s in large part due to them stepping out of their usual mode and deciding that Upton was a sunk cost. They should do this more often! If you want to emulate the success of the Dodgers or the Rays in finding talent out of nowhere, you have to actually do the things those teams do to make that happen. Not all of those players will work out, but if enough of them do, the Angels may finally achieve something they’ve failed to for a decade: find a supporting cast worthy of a roster that has Mike Trout.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Welcome back, Dan. We missed you. Hope you had a good vacation.
Thanks!
I’m curious how often a player has such an immensely good 50 PA (or so), and falls back down to earth. Every major leaguer is capable of a hot streak, but at what sample size–and what quality–is more than just a fringe guy having a good week or two? In other words, when is a small sample size larger enough–and good enough–to imply a significant breakthrough? I may be wrong, but I’m guessing it is very, very rare for fringe–or even average–players to have a 269 wRC over 12 games.
Like the author of this piece, I’m not suggesting that Ward is now a superstar or even a star, but it does seem quite possible he’s something more than an average regular.
Do many people really make this fallacy? There’s possibly a sort of anchoring bias that goes on, but I would suspect that since people generally believe in the “hot hand” as well, that in general a .280 hitter hitting .500 is correctly taken as better evidence of improvement than a .280 hitter hitting .300.
This seems like the “fallacy of trying too hard to reject the hot hand fallacy,” which, admittedly, some research papers have suggested that some sabermatricians have done, but I don’t think it’s that widespread of a general phenomenon.
There are some people who overcorrect for common fallacies to the extent that they make the fallacy with the reverse sign, but I don’t think it’s a large effect in aggregate, especially when considering the entire population.
This is kind of what I was getting at in my comment. As an Angels guy, my tendency is to want to temper my hope that Ward is, all of a sudden, a star (and Dipoto’s at-the-time celebration of drafting him in the 1st round isn’t as absurd now as it seemed at the time). I keep saying, “well, he’s probably closer to the 111 wRC+ guy we saw last year, but that’s still decent enough to be a useful player, and for Ward not to be a wasted 1st round pick.”
But I’m also probably over-compensating, and Ward has been so good this year that its hard to imagine that he’s going to settle back towards that 111 wRC+. Maybe the most likely outcome–given his overall trajectory and his performance this year, is that he’s having a Walshian breakthrough, so will have a wRC+ at season’s end around 130, plus or minus. That’s still a lot better than I or anyone expected, with the possible exception of Jerry Dipoto in 2015 and Joe Maddon during Spring Training when he declared that Ward would be an everyday player, and Adell and Marsh would platoon – angering Angels fans, including myself. But as of this writing, Ward is the best of the three. Clearly the other two have greater upside, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Marsh ends up with a higher WAR this year, but there’s no reason for Maddon to bench the team’s second best player so far.
I’d rather credit Maddon and the minor league development system than Dipoto. Dipoto selected Ward as a defensive catcher that would have been MLB ready within a couple years. That clearly was wrong. He would likely have been available in the 2nd round when they drafted Jahmai Jones.
Giving Dipoto credit would be like giving the A’s credit for drafting Max Muncy, when he needed to join the Dodgers system to find success.
Eh, that seems like conferring too much credit to an Angels development system that has struggled to produce top shelf positional players for awhile, despite having a considerable bias toward positional players in drafting. What’s more, Maddon only six months ago said Ward’s lot in life was at his ceiling to be a good fourth outfielder. He hasn’t been instrumental, save for the past two weeks, in Ward’s emergence.
There is occasionally something to makeup, athleticism and working hard at self-improvement, and Ward, like Walsh before him, has ground hard to quiet many skeptics (including myself). When Ward was drafted, the draftroom team (and his selection was more Ric Wilson’s than Jerry Dipoto’s) cited his athleticism and strike zone knowledge as components to build on, and those have certainly been key in his self-transformation. The team liked the overall player, and clearly weren’t wedded to him as a catcher, and the selection has proved justifiable.
Moreover, I think it shortchanges Dipoto somewhat to suggest he’s clueless at farm development, since he took #30 ranked Seattle system, and through trades, drafting and development, built a top-three system in less than three years flat, while the Angels have languished with a bottom-third farm for awhile, despite advantageous drafting position in recent years. Which shouldn’t be surprising given how much ownership notoriously underfunds ops, tech and scouting.
And too much is made of Ward’s being a “first round pick”. He was a #26 pick in a fairly shallow draft class – there have been few standouts that have emerged from the 2015 second round – and Ward was in the 60-70 territory on most draft boards. The Angels picked next at #70, so they basically got two second-round talents they liked in Ward and Jones while picking last in the draft, and Ward is justifying the faith. In retrospect, selecting an athletic catcher when you have poor draft position seems more hyperrational than an ill-considered lark in the end.
Last year a late blooming once catcher, Yermin Mercedes, had an amazing month of April. His first 12 games he had a slash line of .476/.522./786 for an OPS of 1.307. He was not walking as much ~8% but also had a pretty low K% (~10%) and his BABI was even higher than Wards. Dan I’m interested if Zips increased his projected wins by 1 per season too. This is a serious question and not snark. I feel like we see this from someone every year and just wonder how much less than 10% of the season can change the projections for a rookie type player and then looking back if these projections stand up. For Mercedes the rest of April was actually really good ending April with an OPS of 1.113 – BB% ~6%,K% 13%, BABIP .446. It seems like even a full month things can go really right for a guy, but how much does this change projections or should it given his lack of MLB experience. And then what did his ROS do to them as from May 1 – June 30 his OPS was .537 brining the season OPS down to .732. Note: there are no 2022 Zips for him on the site.
It increased him, but not to the same degree.
The only similarity between the two is that both are former catchers. Ward’s plate discipline will be a huge asset going forward as he is batting in front of 2 of the best hitters in baseball. Worst case scenario, he should still provide minimum 0.750 OPS for the rest of season, in line with his 2021 production.
Mercedes’ BABIP being higher than Ward’s also implies that his stats were more of a fluke than Ward’s. I think it would safe to project a minimum wRC+ of 110 for rest of season, which is significantly better than Mercedes May through June production.
Also, can’t have ZiPS projections for an injured player that may not play at all this season.
And to think the right-handed outfielder everyone was looking forward to break out this year from the Angels was Jo Adell (though he technically still can).
If the Angels hang around until the Trade Deadline, a good middle infielder could be just what they need to get over the hump. Don’t know who’d be available then, but I don’t think mixing and matching Wade/Velaszquez/Duffy/Fletch is the answer for a team that has Trout & Ohtani in their primes.
Yeah, but with the rest of their lineup as good as it is, the Angels can carry a weak spot or two in the lineup – and Duffy, at least, is basically a league average hitter, although Maddon’s been playing him less than Wade and Velasquez. I think Maddon will continue tinkering for the next month or two before settling down with the middle infield. He also still hasn’t given Rengifo yet another shot, or Stefanic.
The really fascinating thing about Ward’s 2021 isn’t so much what he did well at the plate so much as what he didn’t do well…in that there isn’t really anything you can truly point to as an issue.
The closest thing that you could point to is his contact outside of the zone being a bit worse than average, but not only is it not that large of a difference, you could argue that it’s at least somewhat offset by his O-Swing% being slightly better than average. His baserunning might have been a hair below average, but not enough to really make it out to be a weakness. And after those…well, there’s not really anything, because he was at least average, if not better, at everything else offensively. I’d especially point out his page’s Plate Discipline section, where it’s almost creepy how close to average his 2021 season was in those regards.
Dude is a stud and is here to stay. 135+ Wrc+ Going forward.