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Monday, June 11, 2007 |
Joe Sheehan Repeats Himself
... but it's all good. Remember this golden oldie? Good, because you're about to get a second helping.
For all the talk about how well they run the bases and put pressure on the defense and such, the Angels’ offense is really a relatively simple machine. When they get the extra hits, they do well. When they don’t, they don’t score enough to win. If I told you nothing but the Angels’ rank in batting average in every season since 1999, you’d have all the information you needed to determine whether they had a good offense or not; the only exceptions were in 2003 and 2004, when even a good average was misleading.Sheehan's on to something here (or else I wouldn't be quoting him). Let's take a look at the big three stats in the Mike Scioscia era:
If one thing really stands out here, it's that it does not pay to be in the bottom half of any of these statistics. The 2000 Angels, of course, couldn't pitch, with a composite team ERA of 5.02, good for ninth in the league. Despite getting into the postseason in 2004 and 2005 with mediocre-to-good team batting averages, their below-par OBP (in 2005) and SLG (both years) ultimately killed them in the postseason (and in 2004, they ran into a buzzsaw in Boston). If the aim is to just take the division, fine, admit as much; but if the aim is just a bit higher, well, that's different.Year Avg Rank OBP Rank SLG Rank ======================================== 2000 .280 5th .352 6th .472 1st 2001 .261 11th .327 9th .405 12th 2002 .282 1st .341 4th .433 6th 2003 .268 7th .330 8th .413 9th 2004 .282 1st* .341 6th .429 10th 2005 .270 6th .325 9th .409 9th 2006 .274 9th** .334 10th .425 8th†*Tied for first with Boston.
**Tied for 9th with Detroit.
†Tied for 8th with Minnesota.
Labels: angels
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