Of the 43 analysts who made preseason predictions at ESPN.com, 31 picked the Los Angeles Angels to win the toughest division in baseball. Over the past two offseasons, they've invested about $450 million in three big-name free agents: Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, and C.J. Wilson. They've also lost eight of the first eleven games they've played in the 2013 season.
Now, it's silly to draw meaningful conclusions from two weeks of baseball. But at the same time, if any team knows how damaging a slow start can be, it's these Angels. Last year, they were one of the best teams in baseball post-May 1st; yet a dismal April record was damaging enough to keep them from making the playoffs. The games in April count just as much as the games in September.
The question is whether the Angels have simply been unlucky in the first two weeks, or if deeper problems exist that are already manifesting themselves. The latter looks to be quite likely, which should scare the heck out of the Angels.
Much of the blame lies with their pitching. It's not pretty. Jered Weaver was supposed to anchor the weak group, but his velocity has taken an alarming dive towards Freddy Garcia levels and now a broken elbow will keep him on the shelf for at least a month. With Weaver out, the rotation looks downright disastrous. C.J. Wilson can't throw strikes and finds himself hurtling towards an A.J. Burnett-style career path. Tommy Hanson is perpetually one pitch away from a serious arm injury and he's not even good anyway. Jason Vargas and Joe Blanton might be the two most 'blah' pitchers in baseball. A team that had $125 million to blow on Josh Hamilton did shockingly little to address a meager pitching staff over the offseason.
The rationale for that decision probably rested upon the assumption that their potent lineup would just score a million runs, eliminating the need for good pitching. Needless to say, this has not been the case. Josh Hamilton's average is sitting at .186 through 11 games, with three extra-base hits and four walks against fifteen strikeouts. Shortstop Erick Aybar is injured. Mike Trout was never going to repeat last year's historic season. The way Albert Pujols limps around the basepaths is alarming. Yet perhaps the biggest problem is depth. On Saturday against the Astros, their lineup included players named J.B. Shuck (leading off!), Austin Romine, and Luis Jimenez. This team is totally unprepared to weather injury attrition.
The Angels decided to take the "stars-and-scrubs" approach to building a baseball roster -- investing heavily in a few high-caliber players at the expense of quality depth. This is a strategy probably better suited for the NBA. Or maybe the Angels just did it wrong. Either way, the result has been ugly. Their stars are injury-prone, declining, deeply flawed, or even all three ("...paging Dr. Hamilton..."). And their scrubs -- including virtually the entire starting rotation -- are really, really bad.
In fact, can we even definitively say that the 2013 Angels are better than the 2012 Angels, a team that missed the playoffs entirely? So far, going from Torii Hunter to Hamilton looks like a downgrade. Trout and Mark Trumbo will probably regress a little. Zack Greinke won't be around for the last two months this time. All that preseason hype around this team looks a bit foolish right now.
Granted, that doesn't mean there isn't hope. What might end up setting these Angels apart from last year's version is a bounceback season from Albert Pujols, who's off to a hot start. He had the walkoff hit against the Astros on Saturday night, saving his team from a second consecutive defeat against the worst baseball team the league has seen in the last decade. And he leads the AL in walks, a welcome sight given the recent deterioration in his plate discipline.
Yet even if Pujols goes back to being PUJOLS again, the Angels still aren't even a lock for a playoff spot. They're competing for a division title with two teams that finished ahead of them in the standings last year. They're competing for a wild card spot with virtually the rest of the American League, including the entire East division. Their fate rests with things no one would ever be comfortable relying on -- C.J. Wilson's command, Josh Hamilton's pitch selection, Jered Weaver's health, Tommy Hanson's everything. The Angels are still good. But they're not a World Series favorite. And they're not even a team anyone should feel comfortable betting on to make the playoffs, regardless of the names on their lineup card.
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