Aside from last Friday's horrific bullpen fail, which I had the displeasure of witnessing in person (more on that another time), the Angels have really come to life over the last ten days. The team continues to get performances from their overmatched AAA-caliber starters that I can only describe as "gutsy"; Matt Palmer's outdueling of the Yankees $161-million man on Saturday is the best example. The offense continues to pour on the runs at a rate last year's 100-win team could have only dreamed about for two-thirds of the season, even without an "impact bat" like Teixeira or Guerrero. The bullpen is only the reason the Angels are 6-2 in the last ten days instead of 7-1 or even 8-0. But 6-2 ain't bad, and a win tonight brings the team to .500. No small accomplishment considering that this team is still waiting for its marquee players to return.
The question is: can it hold up? If I was advising you on your fantasy team, I'd probably tell you to sell now. The Angels have the third highest BABIP in the AL (.321, one point behind Texas and Toronto) but the third lowest line-drive rate (17.4%, just ahead of Minnesota and Seattle). Only Minnesota hits more ground balls and fewer fly balls than the Angels, and only three teams hit those fly balls out of the park at a slower rate. Their walk rate is fifth-lowest in the AL even though they see the second-fewest strikes. Add it all up and you have a team that is scoring more runs than it should. On the defensive end, Angels' fielders rate toward the bottom end of most metrics, and Angels pitchers are second worst at striking guys out. That does not look good when combined with an unspectacular GB/FB ratio (1.08) and unsustainably low line-drive and home-run-per-flyball rates (17.7% and 8.4%). On a more positive note, the pitching staff has a higher than average BABIP (.315), and the bullpen BABIP is just stupid (.380!). Those both will come down, and by a lot, in the bullpen's case. Still, even though the bullpen should improve, overall pitching efficiency should decrease. Emphasis on the word should.
I'm not advising anyone's fantasy team. Fantasy people will often rely on highly random stats like BABIP to predict future performance: everything suggests that the Angels have overperformed recently, so they have to start underperforming so that everything averages out, right? Well, not really. If you flip a coin and it comes up heads ten times in a row, the chance of getting heads on the eleventh try is still 50%. It doesn't change because you got lucky, and the same is true of the Angels. They're just as likely to do well this week as they were last week. "Regression to the mean" isn't a cosmic force pushing statistics back toward their averages, it just means that if you flipped the coin a million times, you would almost certainly get half a million heads and half a million tails. Anything can happen on a single flip. The reason we watch baseball is because statistics tell us nothing about a single game or a single at-bat. Everyone knows this, but professional fantasy prognosticators need a product to sell you, and so many gurus are not as forthright about it as they could be. Who's going to pay for information like, "the Angels should starting doing worse...but maybe they won't...the only definite thing is that they'll probably do worse, maybe"? Worst horoscope ever.
Fortunately, all this whole analysis becomes irrelevant if the Angels have any luck with players returning from the DL. The Salt Lake Bees just need to hold the fort down for a few more weeks, and as much as my inner stat conscience knows the odds are against it, it's a lot of fun to watch guys like Loux and Palmer really reaching above themselves. So keep watching. Just don't put down any money.
The question is: can it hold up? If I was advising you on your fantasy team, I'd probably tell you to sell now. The Angels have the third highest BABIP in the AL (.321, one point behind Texas and Toronto) but the third lowest line-drive rate (17.4%, just ahead of Minnesota and Seattle). Only Minnesota hits more ground balls and fewer fly balls than the Angels, and only three teams hit those fly balls out of the park at a slower rate. Their walk rate is fifth-lowest in the AL even though they see the second-fewest strikes. Add it all up and you have a team that is scoring more runs than it should. On the defensive end, Angels' fielders rate toward the bottom end of most metrics, and Angels pitchers are second worst at striking guys out. That does not look good when combined with an unspectacular GB/FB ratio (1.08) and unsustainably low line-drive and home-run-per-flyball rates (17.7% and 8.4%). On a more positive note, the pitching staff has a higher than average BABIP (.315), and the bullpen BABIP is just stupid (.380!). Those both will come down, and by a lot, in the bullpen's case. Still, even though the bullpen should improve, overall pitching efficiency should decrease. Emphasis on the word should.
I'm not advising anyone's fantasy team. Fantasy people will often rely on highly random stats like BABIP to predict future performance: everything suggests that the Angels have overperformed recently, so they have to start underperforming so that everything averages out, right? Well, not really. If you flip a coin and it comes up heads ten times in a row, the chance of getting heads on the eleventh try is still 50%. It doesn't change because you got lucky, and the same is true of the Angels. They're just as likely to do well this week as they were last week. "Regression to the mean" isn't a cosmic force pushing statistics back toward their averages, it just means that if you flipped the coin a million times, you would almost certainly get half a million heads and half a million tails. Anything can happen on a single flip. The reason we watch baseball is because statistics tell us nothing about a single game or a single at-bat. Everyone knows this, but professional fantasy prognosticators need a product to sell you, and so many gurus are not as forthright about it as they could be. Who's going to pay for information like, "the Angels should starting doing worse...but maybe they won't...the only definite thing is that they'll probably do worse, maybe"? Worst horoscope ever.
Fortunately, all this whole analysis becomes irrelevant if the Angels have any luck with players returning from the DL. The Salt Lake Bees just need to hold the fort down for a few more weeks, and as much as my inner stat conscience knows the odds are against it, it's a lot of fun to watch guys like Loux and Palmer really reaching above themselves. So keep watching. Just don't put down any money.
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