The gap between where most experts put the Angels – third place, around .500 – and the postseason aspirations held within the organization is easily explained.
Hector Santiago. Garrett Richards. Tyler Skaggs.
Those three pitchers represent 60 percent of the Angels rotation, and outsiders are understandably leery of such an unproved trio. None of the three has ever made it through a full big-league season as a starter.
To hear General Manager Jerry Dipoto tell it, the concern is unwarranted, at least when it comes to Santiago and Richards.
“Those guys are unfairly looked upon as guys who we are crossing our fingers with,” Dipoto said. “That’s not the case. They are young major leaguers with experience who have already started to make the adjustments required to have long-term success in this league.”
Skaggs, Dipoto concedes, is a different case. He is 22 and has made only 13 big-league starts.
However you project the three pitchers, it is likely that their performance will be the defining element of the 2014 Angels.
Apologies to Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, starting pitching is the “heartbeat” of a team, as Mike Scioscia frequently says.
Last season, the Angels went into the campaign with a rotation of Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson, Jason Vargas, Joe Blanton and Tommy Hanson. The first four were established pitchers who weren’t likely to do any more than they had done before, and Hanson was trying to rebound from years heading the wrong way.
As you know, four of the five projected starters – all but Wilson – either got hurt or underperformed, and a club with World Series hopes finished 78-84.
It’s entirely different now, as the Angels have assembled a rotation with upside.
“At that age, when you have zero to three years, that’s when you make really big gains as a player,” Wilson said. “You learn more things and make less mistakes.”
The most advanced of the three is Santiago, a 26-year-old lefty acquired with Skaggs in the Mark Trumbo deal. With the Chicago White Sox, Santiago posted a 3.33 ERA, pitching mostly as a reliever, in 2012. Last season he started 23 games, and had an overall 3.56 ERA.
This spring, Santiago has impressed just about everyone in camp with his “seemingly endless menu of pitches,” Dipoto said, most notably a rare screwball.
“He does a lot of things well,” catcher Chris Iannetta said. “He mixes up speeds, mixes up pitches, keeps hitters off balance. He’s a tough at-bat.”
Richards, 25, had been something of an enigma to the Angels, never quite achieving the consistent performance to match his raw stuff. He throws his fastball in the mid- to upper-90s and he has a sharp slider and curveball. But he began stringing together good outings only in the second half last season, in what was his third opportunity in the rotation. He had a 3.72 ERA in 13 starts to finish the season, a number the Angels believe is more indicative of his future than his career 4.66 ERA before that.
“From last spring to this spring, he’s matured quite a lot as a person,” Dipoto said. “He’s become comfortable with the fact that he’s a big-league pitcher, and the results show. In the second half of last year, once given the opportunity to start every fifth day, he ran with it.”
Skaggs is the wild card of the wild cards. He has the highest ceiling of the three, but because of his limited experience and his age, it’s too soon to tell if he’ll reach his potential this year, next year or never.
“You will have days Tyler goes out there and looks like a future star, and days he goes out there and looks like a 22-year-old trying to figure it out,” Dipoto said. “That’s the nature of developing young players, and Tyler won’t be different.”
In spring training he showed a little of everything. His velocity, the loss of which last year sent up some red flags, returned to the 92-95 mph range. At times he flashed a knee-buckling curve. But he also got in trouble at moments when he lost his command.
The Angels believe they can ride the rollercoaster with Skaggs because they feel good about getting consistency from Santiago and Richards. Of course, it goes without saying that they also need Weaver and Wilson to stay healthy and pitch to their normal levels.
If all that happens, the Angels could prove the experts wrong and be a playoff team.
“Starting pitching is almost always the key to where most teams go,” Dipoto said. “We are excited about what the three of them can bring.”
Contact the writer: jlfletcher@ocregister.com
