Angels Are Taking A Simplified Approach With Starters

We still don’t really know what happened behind the scenes when the Los Angeles Angels elected to fire pitching coach Mike Maddux, but we do know that part of it was about analytics and data, and we also know that the Angels are taking a different approach that’s been very successful so far. 

That’s especially true with the starters, who had 1.51 ERA over 65 2/3 innings since Aug. 11, including seven quality starts going into Sunday’s action, according to an article by John Henry of MLB.com. That included their recent road trip going into that final game against the Texas Rangers, as they had a 0.84 ERA over 32 innings.

Reid Detmers, George Klassen and Ryan Johnson have been dominant in that time, Henry noted, and manager Kurt Suzuki indicated that a simplified approach is part of what’s behind the improvement. 

“Sometimes, we get caught up in doing all these reports, and it’s a lot of information,” Suzuki said before Sunday’s series finale at Texas. “So we try to simplify it a little bit, especially for the younger guys, and just show them and tell them what they do really well -- and then make it better.”

There’s still no word about how Maddux’s approach was different, and we probably won’t hear more about that when folks from behind the scenes feel safe speaking out with this cluster of a season is mostly in the rear view. 

The Angels are still trying to figure out their situation with the starters, which is complicated, to say the least. Yusei Kikuchi forced their hand by coming back early from his last rehab start to give up five runs in five innings, which means the Halos now have too many starters, sort of. 

The problem is that Detmers, Johnson, Klassen and rookie Walbert Urena have been very good, while right hander Grayson Rodriguez has been very problematic and Kikuchi flat-out bad. The Angels haven’t figured out if that means a five- or six-man rotation, with Suzuki punting on that decision for the moment. 

“It gets tricky,” Suzuki said. “We haven't gotten to that point of kind of figuring that out. And besides which, I think that's more for the upstairs. The guys in the front office can kind of figure out the math on that one, but it is going to get tricky. Once we kind of put our brains together, we'll kind of figure out what’s best moving forward.”