Upbeat Angels GM Perry Minasian calls 9-9 start bad luck

Staff Writer

April 24, 2021 9:21 AM PT

HOUSTON — The first season of Perry Minasian’s career as a general manager has been eventful.

There have been injuries, postponements and up-and-down play from an Angels club off to a 9-9 start.

Prior to Friday’s game, the first-year GM met with reporters for an opening-month update. Here are five takeaways from what he’s seen so far.

Belief on the mound

It hasn’t shown up in the final results yet, but Minasian has been encouraged by some key early-season metrics produced by his pitching staff.

After Friday’s loss, in which the Angels twice squandered two-run leads, their pitchers now have a 4.82 team ERA, ranking fourth-worst in MLB.

But there are other indicators that Minasian values: ground ball percentage, where the Angels rank seventh in Major League Baseball at 46.5%; strikeout percentage, where they rank fifth at 27.2%; fielding-independent-pitching, a stat similar to ERA that removes defensive performance and batted ball luck, where the Angels rank seventh with a 3.52 mark.

“Those are obviously really important,” Minasian said. “I think, overall, we’ve had some bad luck. But hopefully, over the course of 162 [games] it evens out.”

One such “bad luck” barometer is batting average on balls in play, where Angels opponents currently have a league-high .318 mark (10 points higher than the next nearest team), despite making generally soft contact (Angels pitchers have recorded the fourth-lowest average exit velocity against thus far).

There are other issues to address. The team has the seventh-highest walk rate in baseball (though Minasian attributed some of that to a residual effect of the pitchers’ emphasis on avoiding hard contact), and the bullpen has allowed more than half of its inherited runners to score.

Still, Minasian remained upbeat.

“We’re so early into the season, it’s hard to make any assumptions,” he said. “But we like where we’re at.”

Plans for right field

After right fielder Dexter Fowler was lost for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament this month, Minasian made his first big decision of the regular season: to stand pat and rely on the Angels’ internal depth.

“There’s always external options that are possibilities to a certain extent, but internally … we wanted to take a look at some of these guys and see how they perform,” he said. “Whether it’s a Scott Schebler or a [José] Rojas in the outfield or a [Juan] Lagares when he’s healthy, we do feel like we have major league-caliber players here that can help.”

Since Fowler’s injury, the Angels have used a combination of players in right, from Rojas and Schebler, who each have three doubles this season, to Jared Walsh, who has split his time this season between first base and the outfield.

Once Lagares, a right-handed hitter, returns from the injured list, which could happen as soon as this weekend, he could form a platoon with one of those left-handed hitters.

Manager Joe Maddon said the team is still figuring out how playing time will be split up once Lagares comes back.

Jo Adell update

Top prospect Jo Adell isn’t quite yet back in the mix for more MLB playing time after a bumpy debut season in 2020, but Minasian said the 22-year-old former first-round pick has been making strides at the team’s alternate training site.

“We’re excited to see how he starts his minor-league season when that kicks off,” Minasian said. “But he’s definitely put the work in. He’s an outstanding kid. Hard worker. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I think last year was good for him in the sense that, probably for the first time on a baseball field, he’s ever had some tough moments. He’s so talented, so I think that will make him better in the long run.”

Overall, Minasian said the alternate training site in Tempe, Ariz., for top minor-league players awaiting the start of their league season next month, has run smoothly, comparing it to an instructional league setting.

“Obviously, it’s an older group, but you can take certain things, individual things, small things that you can sharpen or clean up or improve on a daily basis,” he said. “A lot of individual work.”

New-look front office

Since being hired by the Angels this offseason, Minasiasn has infused the front office with a lot of familiar faces from his past.

Among the notable examples, Alex Tamin is the assistant general manager, following Minasian from the Atlanta Braves this winter. Gene Watson is a senior advisor for major league operations and has known Minasian since Manasian was a boy in the 1990s, when Watson and Minasian’s father both worked for the Texas Rangers.

And the new director of player development is Joey Prebynski, the St. Louis Cardinals’ former game-planning coach who also has a previous Rangers tie with Minasian.

“It’s something that, coming in, once I had a chance to get the lay of the land, I felt like we had some areas where we can make adjustments,” Minasian said. “Obviously working with people and knowing what they bring to the table, there’s a comfort level there. They know me too. So I think it speeds things up to a certain extent, as far as executing a game plan.”

Ohtani impressing on, off the field

Minasian has been following Shohei Ohtani for years, scouting the two-way star in Japan before he came to MLB and watching from a distance during his first three big-league seasons.

But now that he’s seen Ohtani, who is slashing .294/.333/.632 and will make his third start as a pitcher on Monday, up close, there’s one thing that has stuck out.

“Man, this guy is extremely competitive,” Minasian said. “Whether it’s at the dish, on the mound, I like the fact he had the ability to turn the page. One bad at-bat doesn’t lead to three bad at-bats. One bad pitch doesn’t lead to five, six, seven, eight. He’s able to turn the page. The emotion he’s shown, the competitiveness he’s shown on a daily basis, the way he studies, the work he does off the field with his body — I’ve been very, very impressed with what he does off the field.”