I know the Angels bullpen doesn’t necessarily have a big hole in it that needs immediate attention, but the addition of Tony Sipp could very well be the crucial piece that pushes the Angels back into the playoffs. One of the intimidating aspects of the best clubs in baseball is their shutdown bullpen. The American League last season had three elite bullpens: Houston’s (1.11 WHIP), Kansas City’s (1.13 WHIP), and Toronto’s (1.14 WHIP). The Angels had a middle of the pack bullpen, ranking seventh in the league with a 1.27 WHIP, and if they want to return to being a championship caliber team, improving their bullpen is a must.
Sipp would go a long way towards turning the Angel bullpen into a high-performance machine. During the last two seasons with the Astros, Sipp had a minuscule 0.96 WHIP in 105 innings pitched. He was also the owner of an impressive 10.7 K/9 rate while with the Astros. One of the reasons he has been so effective over the past two seasons is that he is one of the rare relief pitchers who has four highly effective weapons in his pitching arsenal. He has an upper-90s four seam fastball, a low-90s two seamer, a slider, and a change-up.
An established reliever capable of bringing the heat is something that the Angel bullpen has been missing ever since they traded Kevin Jepsen, and if the Angels do sign Sipp, that makes trading away Cam Bedrosian, a hard-throwing young reliever that other clubs have expressed an interest in, easier on the depth chart.
According to MLB Trade Rumors, Sipp will be in line to receive a new contract somewhere around $12 million over three years. Although the free-agent market this offseason has several relievers who would be attractive to any team out there—Darren O’Day, Joakim Soria, Tyler Clippard, Antonio Bastardo—the Angels should be in aggressive pursuit of Sipp in particular because he has expressed an interest in staying with the Astros, and an experienced, hungry Houston club with Tony Sipp lurking in their bullpen will be a very tough club to beat.
Another area that the Angels need to address is their woeful baserunning, especially their ability to steal a base. Hopefully, having Ron Roenicke operating as the team’s new third base coach will significantly improve their success rate in base-running plays ending at third base or home plate. Now what they need is someone to help attack their stolen base problem.
What was once an exciting, dynamic part of a Mike Scioscia-managed club is now one of the weakest parts of their offensive attack. In 2014, the Angels had just 81 stolen bases, worst in the AL West. In 2015, the club dropped down to having just 52 stolen bases, the second worst total in the league. In 2015, Kole Calhoun had four stolen bases and Collin Cowgill had two. For players who had once racked up 20 (Calhoun in 2011) and 30 (Cowgill in 2011) stolen base seasons in the minors, this current lack of production is unacceptable. Even the great Mike Trout has been susceptible to this malaise, as he has seen his stolen base total plummet from 49 in 2012 to only eleven in 2015. This problem even extends down to the Angels’ Triple-A club as the Salt Lake Bees were 14th in the 16-team Pacific Coast League in stolen bases.
The solution, it seems, is to hire someone, among the legion of coaches a Major League club now employs, to be the Angels’ base-running coach. The man I propose to fill that position is the Angels’ all-time leader in stolen bases, a man who stole 40 or more bases in a season five times, a man who stole 62 bases in 2005, Chone Figgins. He has been out of baseball since the Dodgers released him in August of 2014, so it seems that he may be available, and if he is, hopefully he can transfer his considerable expertise on how to read a pitcher, what situation is optimal for an attempt, and all the other nuances that go into being a successful base-stealer.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
