For all the shortcoming of the Angels rotation entering the season, the one guy they thought they could count on was C.J. Wilson. By the end of the year, Wilson couldn’t even be counted on to get out of the first inning of the ALDS.
Just how bad was he?
Wilson had a 4.51 ERA and 4.31 FIP. Neither of those marks are all that bad. They’re #4 or #5 starter numbers, but they aren’t Joe Blanton the Sequel bad. But from a value standpoint, he was a replacement level pitcher (according to rWAR and WARP). That’s… not good. Even in 2012 when Wilson had some struggles, he could be counted on to at least eat innings. In his four previous seasons as a starter, he had never logged fewer than 202 innings. This year, he pitched just 175.2 innings.
In what way was he bad though?
Like I said, the 4.51 ERA wasn’t all that awful. The bigger issue was the way in which he reached that ERA. His strikeout rate of 19.8% was the worst of his career as a starter, but only barely. What really got him was, and you’re never going to believe this, walks. C.J. has always handed out a lot of free passes, but his 11.2% rate was easily the worst mark of his starting career.
Unsurprisingly, all of Wilson’s struggles were related to command. Wilson also set a career-worst mark for pitches per plate appearance and threw the lowest percentage of pitches in the strike zone (44.7%) for his career. That was a particular problem because he generated the lowest swing rate on balls out of the zone. That, my friends, is a double whammy.
What we don’t know is why his command got so bad (or in his case, so much worse). There are some curious changes in his pitch mix that might shed light on the topic. For some reason, C.J. shied away from his cutter a bit and drastically dropped the usage of his slider while simultaneously marginally increasing his curveball use and the near doubling of his changeup use. There was also that one time he tried to throw a knuckleball, which was just dumb.
Of particular note was Wilson essentially swapping out the slider for the change. That’s because the slider had been a big part of his arsenal, specifically the part that helped him miss bats. His changeup is not good at that at all. In fact, it is probably his worst pitch. Last season, opponents batter .275 with a .177 ISO on his change. Again, that’s not good. That’s not good at all.
What isn’t clear is whether the changeup is the chicken or the egg. Did he start throwing the changeup because he couldn’t throw his other offspeed pitches in the zone or did he start missing the zone. Both explanations make sense because he didn’t actually throw his change for strikes all that much, but his slider and curve weren’t exactly pounding the zone either.
Is injury an issue maybe?
That’s what I, and many others, kept waiting for but it doesn’t seem to be the case. He did miss a few weeks at the nadir of his struggles when he conveniently sprained his ankle, but that allegedly occurred after his struggles began. He did also talk about some hip issues he discovered while rehabbing that ankle injury. He fixed that and came back and immediately proceeded to get bombed once again. So, yeah, it probably wasn’t the hip.
That doesn’t mean injury isn’t a problem. He made a veiled reference to getting his body healthy this offseason in his end of season Instagram message, because apparently that’s a thing now. That may not mean anything, but it is really the only thing to cling to because his inability to correct his problems was even becoming obviously frustrating for Mike Scioscia by the end of the year.
Will C.J. be able to get back on the beam in 2015?
That’s not looking hopeful as Wilson didn’t even seem to know where the beam was during the ALDS.
Final Answer
Like the other prominent former Ranger on the roster, Wilson is really going to have show that he’s worked out his issues by the time next season starts if he wants to avoid being the target of the fans’ collective wrath. Plus, with the growing rotation depth of the Halos, the team is even reaching a point where booting C.J. from the rotation isn’t a far-fetched idea.
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