Who to worry about the most in the struggling Angels offense

When it comes to the Angels offense, the struggle is real. One of the best lineups in all of baseball in 2014 swapped out Josh Hamilton and Howie Kendrick for Matt Joyce and Johnny Giavotella. The result? The offense has gone straight into the crapper for the first 14 games of the 2015 season.

The Angels offense is currently mired at 12th in the American League with a wRC+ of 83. To put that in perspective, the worst offense in the AL in 2014 was Texas at 89. What that suggests is that the Angels offense can’t possibly continue to be this bad. Someone besides Mike Trout has to hit better, even if by accident. Even when it does get better, this early season slump has certainly made us wonder what the ceiling for the offense even is anymore. To solve that riddle, let’s look at all the underperformers, and, boy, there are a lot of them, to see who can bounce back and just how far.

Oh, and to determine which hitters are the most worrisome, we’ll be taking our normal SciosciaFace Rating System and upgrading to the Wells Worry-meter.

Matt Joyce (7 wRC+)
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a wRC+ that was in the single digits. That’s a special kind of bad.

Joyce’s woes at the plate might be the most damning to the Angels. His acquisition was supposed to offset a lot of what the Angels lost in Howie Kendrick and mitigate the early season absence (and potential rest of season struggles) of Josh Hamilton. They desperately needed Joyce to produce. He hasn’t even come close.

For Joyce, there is a lot of reason to worry. I had assumed this was just the latest in the annual tradition of new Angel hitters coming in and struggling out of the gate because they are trying too hard, taking himself out of his approach. It has all the classic markings of Anaheimnesia, but I’m not entirely certain that is the only thing he’s afflicted by as Joyce’s swing rates aren’t all that much higher than normal. He’s been a bit more aggressive outside of the zone, which has really eaten into his walk rate while his contact rate out of the zone has dropped well below his career norm, which has bloated his strikeout rate.

The good news is that he’s still hitting a lot of line drives compared to his career average, so maybe once he settles himself down a bit at the plate, those whiffs will turn into walks and more of those liners will find a hole.

The bad news is that if he doesn’t figure it out, the Angels don’t really have an option for replacing him, even if Josh Hamilton returns and is useful.

WORRY LEVEL:

Chris Iannetta (14 wRC+)
The Angels offense is circling the toilet bowl and Iannetta has basically been the one repeatedly flushing that toilet. He was probably the one guy in 2014 that was clearly seen to be overachieving, so some regression was expected. But this… this is obscene. He’s striking out in 32% of his plate appearances and in the rare event that he does put the ball in play, he isn’t doing so with much authority as shown by his microscopic .023 ISO. But, hey, at least he’s still walking at a 12% clip, right?

This seems like cause for great concern, but it really isn’t. Iannetta is one of those guys that when he slumps, he really slumps. They don’t usually last this long, but for him to go a week or two without a hit is, sadly, entirely normal for him. History suggests that he’ll snap out of it sooner or later. Let’s hope it is sooner though because without a capable offensive back-up, the Angels are stuck without much choice but to keep riding Iannetta until he comes around.

WORRY LEVEL:

Efren Navarro (51 wRC+)
Navarro isn’t even on the roster anymore, so clearly they weren’t counting on him to produce. He was never much of a hitter to begin with, so it would have been foolish for them to expect much. Still, if Cron can’t face most righties and Hamilton remains out or winds up getting released, having another lefty bat to DH or play left field would be nice. It clearly isn’t going to be Navarro because it was never going to be Navarro.

WORRY LEVEL:

Collin Cowgill (52 wRC+)
It is hard to know how concerned to be about Cowgill. He was pretty solid last year in what was his first real show of success in the big leagues but he did it on the strength of a .331 BABIP that smells a bit fluky. All the projections have him forecasted to be a well below league average hitter on the year. He’s been even worse than that so far, but there isn’t a lot of reason to believe he’s suddenly going to get a lot better.

What might mitigate Cowgill’s struggles could be a potential call-up of Grant Green to be a platoon partner at DH with Matt Joyce either in the outfield or at DH after Hamilton returns (if that happens) with Collin taking more of a traditional bench role. Really then the issue isn’t whether or not Cowgill can get better but rather can the Angels just not play him so much.

WORRY LEVEL:

C.J. Cron (56 wRC+)
Cron had a terrific spring and immediately stopped hitting once games actually started to count. It is the same old story with him though. He has an overly aggressive approach (swinging at approximately 40% of pitches out-of-the-zone) and doesn’t make enough good contact as a result. The power is there, but it isn’t there enough to make up for all his other issues. He’s already steadily falling out of favor against right-handed pitching with Scioscia, so there is clearly not a lot of organizational faith in his ability to rebound.

The conundrum with Cron is that the Angels really need a right-handed bat to platoon at DH with Joyce, assuming Hamilton returns. They could go with Cowgill, but that isn’t ideal. They really need Cron to start producing.

WORRY LEVEL:

Erick Aybar (57 wRC+)
Like all players, Aybar has his slumps, but on a seasonal basis Aybar is incredibly consistent. He’s scuffling a bit right now and maybe getting BABIPed a little (.244 so far in 2015 versus .304 on his career), but he there is little reason to think anything is wrong with him. He’s shown signs of life this week, so it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if he’s back on track by the end of the month.

WORRY LEVEL:

Albert Pujols (92 wRC+)
There are two numbers that concern me the most about Albert: 10.6% and 35. The first number is his line drive rate. That’s… pathetic. Don’t be fooled by Pujols having smacked three homers already, he is not hitting the ball with authority on a consistent basis right now. His average flyball rate is down six feet from last season and a full 20 feet from two years ago. You know, the year where he could barely hit because his feet were disintegrating?

The second number is his age, but you probably knew that already. I know Albert is one of the all-time greats, but that doesn’t mean he is going to decline more slowly than others. The fact that he’s once again running like he has shards of glass in his shoes would suggest that isn’t fully healthy once more.

WORRY LEVEL:

David Freese (113 wRC+)
Freese is struggling on the average and on-base, but he’s hitting for a lot of power. In other words, it is pretty much the opposite of his normal profile, so I’m incredibly confused. However, he has a .293 BABIP thus far, which is good for most people, but Freese is one out the true BABIP outliers and boasts a .342 career BABIP despite the fact that he runs like he’s towing an anchor. When that BABIP course corrects, he’ll be looking pretty good, though it doubtful that the power stroke will remain.

WORRY LEVEL:

Kole Calhoun (132 wRC+)
Yeah, Calhoun’s fine. He pumped his stats up during the recent 14-1 blowout, but even before that he was hitting the ball hard a ton, he was just hitting it right at people.

WORRY LEVEL:

Johnny Giavotella (134 wRC+)
There might not be a hitter I am more concerned about than Giavotella, which sounds strange because he’s one of the few guys hitting. Therein lies the rub. Giavotella has been nothing but a bust in the majors in all of his previous stints in the majors, but now I am suddenly supposed to believe that he is capable hitting well over .300? Some of his success is definitely BABIP-related

WORRY LEVEL: